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“The door was opened immediately, and Grandfather’s tall 
figure filled the aperture.’’ — Page 25 



GRANDrATMER’S 
Tales of 
Colonial Days 

By frank n SWEET 

ILLUSTRATED 



new YORK 
Mg LOUGHLIN BROTHERS 


07 - 



’ LIBRARY of 00M3RESS 
Two CooJes Rocolvad 

AUG 30 ISO; 

jL CoovneW Entry 

fVuj 3^/y^7 

clas4 4 ' XXc.; No. 

/8S7^^ 

COPY □. 


Copyright, 1907, 

By McLoughlin Brothers 
Nc\r York 



Story Telling and this Book - - ... 5 

Introductory Chapter - - - - - -11 

A Sturdy Patriot 15 

Van Bibber’s Leap - • 35 

Capturing a British Spy ------ 51 

Colonel Allan’s “Minute Man” - - - - 70 

The Captured Hessian - 86 

A Young Patriot’s Ruse - 99 

King George’s Thieves -122 

Heroes of Lake Champlain 144 

Nathan Hale - -164 

Captain Beman’s Exploit - • o - 178 





As the evening 
shadows gather in 
the librar}^ my 
mind slips away 
from our story- 
reading days to 
the story-telling 
ones of years ago, 
from the electric 
glare upon the 
sectional book- 
cases to the great 
farm kitchen with its big fire-place — so big 
that a farm horse used to drag in the back- 
log, and so broad that we children gathered 
upon side benches within its capacious depths 
on cold evenings. From these benches we could 
look up through the small square opening of 

5 



6 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


the chimney’s top, sometimes to a bit of star- 
dotted sky, and sometimes a murky one that 
dropped snowflakes into the chimney’s mouth 
and down upon our faces; or out into the 
candle-lighted kitchen where the fireplace 
flickered soft shadows along the smoke- 
blackened cross-beams. 

On one side of the fireplace was grandfather’s 
chair, where the old man always sat of an 
evening, sometimes drawing occasional whiffs 
from his long-stemmed pipe and gazing medita- 
tively into the fire, but more often with the 
pipe resting across his knees and talking of 
bygone days. In the chair opposite sat grand- 
mamma, knitting, smiling, listening, and not 
infrequently joining in the conversation by 
telling a story herself — to keep up the girls’ 
side, she would explain whimsically. 

Later in the evening father would come in 
from his completed chores, with perhaps one 
or two of the older boys, and would draw a 
chair close up in front of the blaze, and remove 
his heavy boots and place them upon the edge 


STORY TELLING AND THIS BOOK 7 

of the hearth, and then take off his hat and 
great coat and lay them upon the floor beside 
the boots, from which place mother would 
quietly remove them. 

For a time the conversation was likely to be 
desultory, about the weather, the crops, and 
the neighbors, perhaps about the small game 
we boys were snaring in the woods, but in 
time grandfather was sure to become reminis- 
cent, and for this we young folks waited, 
patiently or impatiently, as might be our 
mood. Even father, though he had heard 
most of the stories many times, from boyhood 
up, listened with almost as much interest as 
we yoimgsters, to whom they were new. The 
stories were of personal experiences in the 
second war with England, of hardships in 
prairie schooners during the early days of 
westward emigration, memory stories of Revo-^ 
lutionary days that had been told him by his 
father and grandfather, and even traditional- 
tales of Puritan and Pilgrim times that had 
come down through the family. Occasionally 


8 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


something in his reminiscence would bring a 
comment from grandmamma, and perhaps even 
a story; and at such times as he grew silent 
we turned to her with almost equal anticipation. 

Father was naturally a silent man, and 
usually listened with only an occasional nod or 
the briefest of comments; but sometimes, when 
the kitchen became silent, a fit of talkativeness 
would seem to possess him, and then we young 
people listened to stories of the Civil War that 
made our pulses bound and our nerves tingle. 
Father had gone in a private and come out a 
major, and silent man though he was, his mind 
was stored with what he had heard by camp- 
fires and on picket. 

We young people had few books in those 
days, and none of the kind that kindle the 
eyes and hearts of boys and girls in these days 
of much reading; but we did not need them 
— we did not miss them. We had our work, 
our chores, and during certain seasons our 
school lessons in the early evening. But then 
would come the fireplace and the desultory 


STORY TELLING AND THIS BOOK 


9 


but interesting conversation, and later the 
stories. And much do I doubt if the most 
thrilling of the modern book stories linger 
longer in the memories of their young readers 
than did those strong but homely fireside 
tales in ours. 

So now as I watch the electric glare upon 
the sectional bookcases, and realize the count- 
less boys and girls who are depending upon 
such books as they contain for a knowledge of 
the stories that are connected with the building 
up of the country, the adventures and hard- 
ships and heroism of the frontier, the seacoast, 
the wresting of Independence from England, 
and the preservation of the Union from inside 
foes, it comes over me that here is the pleasant 
task, the duty even, of preserving some of the 
fireside stories, the brawn and heart, as it were, 
of the country’s establishment and growth, for 
these young students of their country’s romance 
and history. 


10 GRANDFATHER’S TALES 

The pleasure of the work, not task, will be 
rather in the choosing of stories than finding 
them. Every hill and valley, every harbor 
and waterfall and old house almost, has its 
traditional story of heroism or endurance or 
intrepidity. The native villager and country 
dweller delight in telling them, and in the 
hearts of their children is an emulation to like 
deeds of daring. 

If in the telling of these stories I can 
awaken in the hearts of the young book- 
readers something of the same enthusiasm and 
breathless interest that was mine when I sat 
in the chimney corner listening to the white- 
haired grandfather or grandmamma, or to the 
strong, self-contained man who had followed 
Grant to Richmond, I will feel richly repaid. 

Frank H. Sweet. 


Waynesboro, Virginia. 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 

In the brave days 
of the country’s 
early growth it 
was the strong, 
fearless men who 
did the things that 
made Indepen- 
dence and progress 
possible, and nat- 
urally it was such 
of these same 
strong, sturdy pioneers and soldiers as escaped 
the dangers they dared who grew to a ripe 
old age and finally occupied the revered family 

chairs in the chimney corners. 

11 




12 


GRANDFATHER'S TALES 


From these chairs have come down our family 
traditions and stories, tales that have entered 
into our hearts and memory and are to us as 
no other tales can be. What our grandfather 
has told us about himself and about his father 
and grandfather becomes a part of our heritage, 
and in no small measure helps to shape our 
thoughts and lives. 

In these Grandfather stories I have kept in 
mind such traits as went into the building up 
of the country, and have been careful to in- 
clude only those that belong to its romance 
and history. Grandfather’s time was the stir- 
ring time of conquest, the pushing forward 
into primeval forests, the exploring and 
bridging ot strange streams, the braving of 
hostile Indians and wild beasts, and the 
maintaining of what had been built up and 
conquered from the covetous grasp that sought 
to possess it. 

Even in the sturdy work of hewing the 
country from the wilderness, the land was 


INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 


13 


overrun by the invader. Red coats swarmed 
in from the sea coast, marched overland through 
the interior, and everywhere among the 
patriots found discontents — Tories — to sym- 
pathize with and assist them. 

This made it doubly hard for the Patriots — 
foes within and without. With one arm they 
had to maintain their homes, and with the 
other to secure its freedom and liberty. How 
they did it is exemplified in these selected 
stories of bravery and patriotism. There are 
hundreds of other stories, just as patriotic and 
as full of fearless deeds, still told about the 
firesides of the thirteen Colonies and treasured 
in the hearts of the descendants of the 
Revolutionary heroes. 

Strange, indeed, is it for a man to be hun- 
gry, and then to live to tell the story to his 
loving grandchildren about the fireside; so our 
first tale shall be of 

A Sturdy Patriot. 



I 





A STURDY PATRIOT 
People seldom boast of an ancestor who was 
hanged, but in our family we carefully keep 
green the memory of our great-great-grand 
father whose neck wore the noose. 

Hitherto this story has been an unwritten 
tradition, dear to children, and those who have 
told it by winter firesides have differed as to 
who did the hanging. 

Some writers have accused the Hessians, 
who, after the battle of Long Island, pene- 
trated beyond Jamaica in search of horses; 
but the crime undoubtedly belongs at the door 
of the British Colonel Simcoe. who commanded 
a famous corps of Light Horse Rangers. 

15 


16 GRANDFATHER’S TALES 

This corps was quartered at Oyster Bay 
in 1776, and made forays through Long 
Island. They were the best moimted body of 
horsemen in either service, and at this time 
were preparing for their great ride through 
northern New York. 

Only one great highway was open from 
north to south on the west side of Long Is- 
land, and rebels and royalists alike were forced 
to use it. Naturally the farm-houses were 
placed near this road. 

Messengers came this way after a stealthy 
fashion on fleet horses, bringing General 
Washington’s appeals for the horses and pro- 
vender which his little army required. The 
prosperous ancestor of our family had twenty 
fine saddle horses and abundant forage ready 
to offer to the patriot cause. Daily at this 
time great-great-grandfather waited a summons 
to deliver the animals, and he had resolved that 
no soldier of King George should ever saddle 


A STURDY PATRIOT 


17 


one of these high-bred creatures, which he had 
devoted to the struggle for Independence. 

Before daybreak, one morning in that 
famous year of 1776, after the leaves had begun 
to fall and the days were growing short, a 
trusty messenger rode up from the neighbor- 
hood of Oyster Bay. He brought word that 
the Rangers were out in search of horses, and 
were then rapidly approaching the farm. 

Grandfather had been expecting this 
announcement. The oats and com were in 
bags ready for transportation, and hidden within 
an adjacent wood, but the priceless horses 
were harder to conceal. 

The tired scout had ridden fast through the 
darkness, and when he reached the door he 
feared to knock, not knowing but the night 
might conceal some enemy within hearing. 
Tethering his horse, he climbed to the cornice 
of a window in the lower story, and reaching 
thence, tapped gently at the shutterless pane 


18 GRANDFATHER’S TALES 

above. The sash was opened, and the man 
saw the tall form of our grandfather in the 
dim light. 

“You have not a minute to lose! ” the spy 
whispered to him. “Get your women into 
some safe place, and hide your horses and 
cattle. Simcoe’s Light Horse are out. They 
must be close at hand!” 

Our grandfather pushed his big shoulders 
out of the narrow casement till his sturdy, 
intelligent face came close to the mes- 
senger’s. 

“All right,” he said; “ everything is planned. 
We will do what we can. Is this the end of 
your ride? Can you take my wife and baby 
over to Dosoris Mills?” 

“I can do that, squire,” said the scout, 
respectfully. “How will you send them?” 

“They’ll walk; it will be far easier to 
avoid observation that way. My wife knows 
just what to do, and has everything ready. 


A STURDY PATRIOT 


19 


Lead your horse to the back of the house, 
and I will open the door.” 

The scout obeyed quickly, and found his 
host standing at the back entrance, filling the 
narrow casement with his great muscular 
frame. 

“There is food in the buttery,” he said, 
“help yourself. I will unsaddle your horse 
and put him with the rest.” 

“What are you going to do, Squire?” 

“I shall send my boy Jim to the deep 
woods with the horses, where they will scatter 
themselves well out of reach of the thieves. 
The provender is safely hidden.” 

“But you won’t stay here alone? You can 
do nothing against these fellows single-handed. 
You’ll throw your life away.” 

“ Every man in these days must defend his 
own roof as best he may. You will get my 
wife safely off, and then, if I can save the 
horses, the British may do as they like.” 


20 


GRANDFATHERS TALES 


“But the boy?” 

“Jim has a cool head, and is ready for the 
service. Simcoe’s men will find me here, and 
I shall keep their attention for a while. That 
will help to divert them from the boy and the 
horses. As for the boy, there is no other way ; 
he must go. I am only waiting for his mother 
to be off before I wake him. Mother and son 
would find it hard to say good-by.” 

At this moment a lady joined them, hold- 
ing in her arms a young baby and a parcel 
tied in a linen cloth. 

“I am ready, husband,” she said. “I 
looked in at James, but I did not waken 
him.” 

Her lips trembled, but she had the look of 
unshaken resolution. Her husband took the 
bundle, which was not light, and the scout, 
with an appetite but half-satisfied, made ready 
to depart. 

“I will walk to the edge of the woods,” 


A STURDY PATRIOT 


21 


said our grandfather, and as they went forward 
he gave his final instructions to his wife. 
“Wait for a direct message from me before 
you try to come back. Trust in God, and do 
not waste strength in imagining dangers. It 
will all be quickly over, I am sure. They 
may be here in an hour.” 

He strode on to the edge of the forest, 
where he stooped his huge figure, gave his 
wife a quick but not untender kiss, and 
returned rapidly to the house. There he ran 
swiftly upstairs, and called sharply to his boy: 
“Jim, Jim, they are coming! Mother is on 
her way to Dosoris. Don’t lose a minute. 
Get some bread and meat as fast as you can, 
while I saddle Grey Friar. Hurry more than 
you ever did before in your life, my boy!” 

Jim’s small, wiry figure seemed to disown 
his large-limbed, grandly proportioned father, 
but his movements had the fire and speed of 
the best horse in the stables. In a short time 


22 GRANDFATHER’S TALES 

he was ready. The father handed half a loaf of 
bread to the boy after he was in the saddle. 

‘‘Put that in the breast of your jacket. 
You’ll be hungry. Drive the horses gently 
forward. Don’t hurry or frighten them; let 
them take their own way. They will naturally 
fall into a string in the narrow wood-path and 
let them scatter as they choose. 

“They will keep near the water after they 
get to the big brook, for there is short, sweet 
grass there still. Tether Grey Friar near the 
old chestnut-tree, and you climb as high as 
you can. You’ll get a full view of the road 
for a long way. Don’t try to follow or watch 
the horses; keep your attention on the road 
and the house.” 

He paused, and Jim said, “Yes, father.” 
My grandfather reflected a few moments be- 
fore completing his instructions. 

“If you see the Rangers come and go, 
come home as soon as you think it is safe. 


A STURDY PATRIOT 


23 


If you see fire and smoke this way, don’t try 
to come here, but go to Deacon Goodwin’s 
on foot through the woods as fast as you can. 
If the soldiers should, by any chance, follow 
you into the wood, loose Friar at the first 
hint, and keep very still in the tree-top. 
And,” he spoke more slowly, “if you come 
back and don’t find me, go at once to the 
Goodwins’. The deacon will tell you what to 
do in that case.” 

The boy suddenly leaned from the saddle 
and put his all too short arms about his father 
in silence. Then winking his eyelids rapidly 
to shake off the tears he could not keep back, 
he sat stiffly upright, while the stable doors 
were thrown open and the gay horses trooped 
out. As they passed near him, their owner 
struck a resounding blow on each bright flank, 
and sent them toward the open bars with 
quickened speed. 

The plan so successfully set in motion left 


24 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


the planner face to face with a future no man 
could foretell. 

When he lost sight of Jim’s slim little 
figure on his big horse he straightened him- 
self, stretched his arms as weary men do, and 
turned toward his tidy but primitive stables 
with a stern and nervous look upon his usually 
calm face. 

First he put up the bars, and closed up the 
windows and doors of the outbuildings. Then 
he drew an evergreen bough in various direc- 
tions over the paths to obliterate the hoof- 
prints of the horses. An Indian would not 
have been deceived, but to an ordinary eye 
no trace was left of trampling feet. 

Returning to the deserted house, his heavy 
footfalls seemed to awaken unfamiliar echoes, 
and he found it hard to keep within doors 
as he had decided to do until his enemies 
should appear. 

The short autumnal day was past noon be- 


A STURDY PATRIOT 


25 


fore any sound disturbed him. Then he heard 
the tramp of many horses. 

Advancing at a sharp trot, Simcoe’s Ranger’s 
halted suddenly before the gate. If ever he 
were wont to pray, it became him well to do 
so now; but of his whole life this episode is- 
all we know, and whatever his soul did secret- 
ly, God alone understood. 

He walked to the wide old door, placed his 
flint-lock gun within easy reach, and waited. 
With his sword-hilt an officer knocked 
violently : 

“ Open, in the king’s name: ” he commanded 
in a loud voice. 

The door was opened immediately, and 
grandfather’s tall figure filled the aperture 
with an unfaltering steadiness and a fine bearing 
which took the officer by surprise, and caused 
him to lower his tone to one of greater 
respect : 

“We are here as servants of King George, 


26 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


and we summon you to give us aid against 
his enemies. We are in pressing need of 
horses and forage, and know that you have 
both at your command. How many horses 
can you give us?” 

Grandfather looked beyond the officer who 
addressed him, and saw that at least fifty 
well-armed men were looking eagerly toward 
him. 

‘ ‘ I owe no allegiance to King George, nor 
acknowledge any claim of his upon my 
property,” he said, defiantly, “but as you are 
fifty against one. you can take what you 
can find.” 

The officer looked up at the towering figure 
before him, with incredulous surprise. 

“You must hold your life cheap,” he said, 
angrily. “Sergeant, detail ten men to guard 
this rebel while we search the premises.” 

Grandfather’s right hand reached out eager- 
ly for his gun, but the futility of trying to 


A STURDY PATRIOT 


defend himself was too apparent. He dropped 
his arm and stood immovable, while ten of 
the marauders rode inside the gate, and 
gathered close around the door. 

Dismounting about half his men, the com- 
manding officer, himself remaining in his saddle, 
led the way to the rear of the house. 

Terrible as the crisis was, grandfather could 
not repress a grim smile as he heard doors 
and windows slamming, and oaths and shouts 
of disappointment telling of the discomfiture 
of his enemies. He even heard them let down 
the bars of the fence. 

Would they go to the woods? No — it was 
as he had presumed — they would not venture 
on such doubtful ground. At best they could 
advance only in single file, and knew not 
what danger might lie in ambush in the forest. 

Furious to find not enough forage even to 
give their horses a noontide meal, and well 
aware that their loss was General Washington’s 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


sure gain, the entire party gathered about the 
man who had defied and outwitted them. 

It was decided to put him to death as a 
traitor, and grandfather heard them discussing 
the best means to execute their purpose. 

The rascally traitor was unworthy of a 
soldier’s death, they said. He should lose his 
life in the most ignominious way they could 
contrive. They would hang him with one of 
his own halters and leave him, a scarecrow to 
every rebel on the island! 

A large wooden spike had been used in the 
rough carpentry of the time, to attach the door 
frame firmly to the house. After binding 
grandfather’s strong wrists behind him, they 
slipped the ready noose over his heroic head, 
tightened the rope, and attached the end of it 
securely to the spike. 

Thus strangled, he became almost instantly 
unconscious, and with many a mad jeer the 
British soldiers rode away and left him. 


A STURDY PATRIOT 


29 


Meantime, poor little Jim had grown wofully 
weary. At long intervals he crept, squirrel- 
like from the tree-top, and took a drink from 
the clear spring, but for the greater part of 
the time he sat on a limb and watched. 

The sweet odors of the wood rose up to 
him on the moist salt air, and the brook 
babbled cheerfully below him, but he on his 
high perch grew stiff and strained, until with 
a sudden start he saw the Rangers in the 
distance. 

He could see them plainly pushing forward 
down the road, and halting before the dear 
home door. His heart beat fast and hard, and 
he clung tightly to the tree. When they came 
near the house, its big roof hid them from 
his sight. 

Half-dead with fear, he watched and listened 
for he knew not how long, but at last he saw 
the soldiers ride away. His overstrained 
faculties were benumbed, and he hardly trusted 


30 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


his own eyes, but he slid to the ground as 
soon as it seemed safe to do so, and mounting 
the horse, turned its willing head toward 
home. 

He rode fast but cautiously, and not a child 
before or since carried with him a more awful 
dread. The bars were down before him, and 
in every outhouse doors and windows stood 
wide open, but not a sound was heard. The 
house stood desolate, and solemn before him. 

“If you come back and do not find me — ” 
Oh! had that came true? 

He jumped fi’om his horse and tied him to 
the fence, and then stole cautiously toward the 
front door. He lived to be more than ninety 
years old, but the memory of what he saw 
then never grew dim. 

In the pleasant doorway, where his mother 
used to sit on summer days and spin, hung 
the dear figure of his father. The face was 
swollen and purple, and the eyelids were half- 


A STURDY PATRIOT 


31 


opened over awful- 
looking eyes, and 
his hands were tied 
behind his back. 

At first Jim 
started to run away, 
but then a longing, 
so strong that it 
overcame fear, 
made him go for- 
ward and touch the 
fettered hands. 

They were warm 
and pliant, though 
dreadfully discol- 
ored. Jim felt an 
urgent impulse to 
free them. With 
a painful effort he 
squeezed past the 
heavy form, and 



Jim on the way for help 


32 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


with his pocket-knife sawed at the rough cords, 
until one parted and the hands fell heavily 
forward. 

Their motion was worse than their rigidty. 
Jim covered his face and stood trembling, 
and unable to pass out as he came in; he 
could not touch them again for all the world 
contained. 

He ran through the kitchen, unlocked the 
door, and came again to the front of the house. 
All at once he saw that his father was not 
suspended by his neck. His feet touched a 
step. His great weight had strained heavily 
upon the cord, and his extraordinary height 
had helped him also. Some slight portion of 
his body was sustained by resting on the step 
below the sill. 

Could it be that he still lived? 

“Father,” Jim shouted, “I am going for 
help.” 

He sprang on Grey Friar’s back, and 


A STURDY PATRIOT 


33 


galloped madly down the road. The force of 
his agony entered into the man he sought, and 
the nearest neighbor did not wait for his own 
beast, but taking Jim’s place, spurred Grey 
Friar back, with the child clinging behind him. 

The alarm sent forward, others followed 
soon, and with tenderest care the ghastly 
figure was released and laid softly down in the 
narrow passageway. With eager anxiety the 
rescuers scrutinized the wounded throat and 
blackened face. The neck was not broken! 
The body was warm! Yes, yes, the heart 
fluttered faintly; he was yet alive! 

The time came, when, with the marks of 
of his martyrdom upon him, grandfather stood 
at his gate and received from General Wash- 
ington himself the thanks he so richly deserved. 
Jim then led out the horses, one by one, and 
delivered them with his own hand to the 
quartermaster, glowing with a pride which 
repaid him tenfold for all his pain. 


34 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


And this story of our great-great-grandfather 
who was “too tall to be hanged” has ever 
been a favorite with the long-legged boys who 
are his descendants. 




Just below the Falls of Kanawha, in West 
Virginia, there is a lofty and overhanging rock 
of immense size, which to this day goes by the 
name of Van Bibber’s Rock; and the incident 
which thus designates it is one of the wildest and 
most exciting to be found in the records of 
colonial adventure. 

The rock juts out about a hundred feet over 
the seething whirlpool at the foot of the falls, 
at a height of nearly a hundred feet above the 
water. The immediate surroundings are wild 
and picturesque in the extreme; though the 
opposite shore is comparatively level, being 
covered with pastures, meadows and timber, and 

35 


36 GRANDFATHER'S TALES 

having a gently shelving beach of sand sloping 
gradually out into the boiling waters, which 
continue their disturbed and riotous character 
for many rods below. 

Hiram Van Bibber, an enterprising back- 
woodsman from the eastern part of Virginia, 
was the first to build a cabin upon this inviting 
bank of the Kanawha, in the latter part of the 
eighteenth century. 

Having had much experience, and being a 
bold and independent character, he lost no time 
in bringing his young wife and two children to 
the new home that he had provided for them. 

Notwithstanding that the region about swarmed 
with Indians, he was unmolested for a year or 
more; and the land was so fertile that it was not 
long before a little settlement sprang up, which, 
with Van Bibber at its head, presented quite a 
village-like appearance, the settlers building 
their cabins near together as a mutual protection 
against the savages. 


VAN BIBBER’S LEAP 


37 


A small Government supply station was also 
established, a few miles further down the stream, 
which added greatly to the general sense of 
security and repose. Still the wild and rocky 
region, which included the opposite bank, 
continued to be occupied by roving bands of red 
hunters, who, if not actually hostile, often cast 
glances of sullen discontent and jealousy upon 
the fairer portion of their ancient heritage, 
which the industry and enterprise of the pale- 
face intruders were swiftly causing to blossom 
like the rose. 

Captain Van Bibber was the soul and heart of 
the little settlement. His renown as a hunter 
was only equalled by his reputation for fair- 
dealing and patriotism; and from the first he 
was looked upon by his neighbors as their 
natural leader. 

The only other member of his household, 
besides his wife and three children, was a great 
pet bear called Brownie, which he had captured 


38 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


when a cub, and so thoroughly tamed that it was 
accustomed to following him, unmuzzled, among 
the cabins like a dog, apparently with no inclina- 
tion to rejoin its kind among the neighboring 
hills. 

Indeed, the brute displayed an exceptional 
affection for him and his family. The oflficers 
and soldiers of the little fort often came to witness 
its tricks and pranks; and “Van Bibber and his 
bear” was the expression most generally used 
by outsiders alluding to our hero. 

It was at the low tide of the Colonies’ fortunes, 
and two of Van Bibber’s brothers had crossed 
into Pennsylvania to join Washington at Valley 
Forge; and his oldest son, scarcely more than a 
boy, had followed them with his parents’ solemn 
consent. Many times Van Bibber himself felt 
an almost uncontrollable impulse to hasten to 
the assistance of the dwindling army at Valley 
Forge; but his wife and small children were here 
in this lonely valley, with roving Indians all 


VAN BIBBER’S LEAP 


39 


about and the duty to them seemed more im- 
perative. 

But the British were already overrunning the 
country, with predatory bands of them penetrat- 
ing even into this wilderness in search of horses 
and cattle, and not infrequently burning houses 
and torturing inmates whose relatives or friends 
were in the Continental army. Two or three 
settlers in Van Bibber’s neighborhood had been 
caught carrying supplies to Washington, and 
murdered, and there were rumors that Van 
Bibber himself was marked for early punishment. 

This, however, did not prevent Captain Van 
Bibber from setting out upon a lonely hunting 
expedition, one April day, in which the adventure 
befell him that was to give his name to the giant 
rock, which, until then, had been known by its 
Indian name, W^ar-kun-gee-tah, signifying the 
‘‘Far-away lookout.” 

A great freshet had so flushed the Falls of the 
Kanawha that he did not venture to cross the 


40 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


river at the point directly below the rapids, and 
just between the settlement and the great rock. 
He passed down the stream for a mile or more 
to a lonely cabin, occupied by a settler named 
Radcliff , where he borrowed a canoe and effected 
a crossing. 

He had capital sport, and shot a number of 
deer and wild turkeys, which he secreted to 
await a conveyance to his home, when the sub- 
siding waters should enable him to make another 
trip on horseback, for that purpose. 

It was towards the middle of the afternoon 
when he started to return home, from which he 
then found himself about eight miles distant. 
Up to this time he had not encountered a single 
red coat, or even any signs of their being in his 
vicinity. 

But he had no sooner quitted the belt of timber 
in which he had been hunting, and begun to 
make his way across the broad, rolling and 
somewhat broken plateau, that lay between him 


VAN BIBBER'S LEAP 


41 



and the precipitous river- 
bank, than a shot from 
a concealed foeman 
whistled through hia 
squirrel-skin hunting- 
cap. 

He at once crouched 
close to the ground and 
prepared for fighting. 
But another and yet 
another shot followed 
the first, in quick suc- 
cession; and upon peep- 
ing up from his covert, 
he saw a score or more 
of soldiers cautiously but 
rapidly approaching 
from different points of the forest. 

He knew them to be Hessians, * from their 
costumes, and therefore understood that nothing 


‘ A shot from a concealed 
foeman 


42 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


but his life would satisfy their murderous 
intentions. 

They had him almost surrounded ; there was 
nothing to do but to run for life ; so on bringing 
down the foremost by a well-directed shot, Van 
Bibber suddenly sprang to his feet and sped over 
the open plain, escaping the numerous shots that 
were sent after him, as if by a miracle, and with 
the entire lot in yelling and bloodthirsty pursuit. 

Van Bibber was a famous runner, however, 
and was under no apprehension of being over- 
taken by his enemies, swift of foot as they un- 
doubtedly were. He had long been noted as the 
strongest, fleetest and most formidable hunter 
lof the Kanawha Valley, and nobly did he vindi- 
cate his reputation on that eventful day! 

He not only acquitted himself so creditably 
as to keep keyond the range of the poor rifles, 
with which his pursuers were armed, but was also 
enabled to load and fire as he ran, thus causing 
several of them to bite the dust before they 


VAN BIBBER'S LEAP 


43 


finally drove him to bay, out upon the further- 
most point of Wah-kun-gee-tah, the great, 
jutting rock overlooking the terrible whirlpool 
at the foot of the falls, and his humble but 
smiling home on the opposite bank. 

Though unable to overtake their fugitive, 
the soldiers had succeeded in baffling all his 
attempts to reach the river at the point at which 
he had effected a crossing in the morning. They 
had so managed to dictate the direction of his 
fiight as to bring him at last to a final and ap- 
parently hopeless stand upon the very edge of 
this tremendous abyss with obviously no choice 
left him but surrender, or death at their hands, — 
or an equally fatal plunge into the boiling, 
cauldron-like whirlpool far, far below. 

But even in this desperate strait. Van Bibber 
did not lose a jot of his cool and collected daring. 
Sheltering himself behind a small group of stones 
and bushes, and loading and firing his trusty 
rifle with wonderful rapidity, he succeeded in 


44 GRANDFATHERS TALES 

keeping the enemy at bay for more than a quar- 
ter of an hour, in full view of his wife and friends 
on the opposite bank of the river. 

The soldiers, though not venturing out upon 
the open shelf within range of his terrible marks- 
manship, clustered along the bushy sides, and 
even crept down far below the very face of the 
cliff, yelling in the certainty of his speedy 
capture or death. 

Captain Van Bibber suddenly stopped firing, 
and for the first time, a feeling of despair must 
have come over him. He had used the last 
bullet in his pouch, and was no longer capable 
of defence! 

The enemy soon suspected as much, and began 
to swarm over the top of the rock in full view 
with revengeful cries. 

But at this instant, when he was about giving 
himself up for lost, a clear, encouraging cry 
came floating to him from far across the yawn- 
ing abyss, making itself distinctly heard above 


VAN BIBBER’S LEAP 45 

the roaring of the waters. It was a woman’s 
voice — ^his wife’s, 

“I’m coming under the rock in the canoe!” 
she cried. “Leap, and meet me!” 

He turned and looked in the direction from 
which the summons had come, dazed and be- 
wildered — ^for such a leap had never been made, 
nor even contemplated before. 

But the heroic woman was already in the 
canoe, paddle in hand, having laid her baby on 
the grassy bank and rushed to the rescue in 
spite of the opposition of her neighbors, who 
looked upon her husband as already doomed, 
and regarded her attempt to navigate the boiling 
waters of the whirlpool as simple madness. 

But she pushed off, and just as she did so. 
Brownie, the pet bear, clambered into the stern 
of the canoe, and sat upright upon his haunches 
keeping his balance perfectly and really aiding 
not a little in “trimming boat” and ballasting 
it, as it were, throughout the wild voyage. 


46 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


As Mrs. Van Bibber succeeded in reaching 
the centre of the stream, directly under the ledge 
of the rock, her husband’s foes were almost 
upon him. 

“Wife, wife!” he shouted, “drop down a 
little lower. I’m coming!” 

With this, and with the clutches of the enemy 
almost closing upon him, he sprang from the 
crag, and descended like a plummet into the 
water, feet foremost. 

In an agony of suspense, his wife rested from 
her toil for a moment, watching for him to rise 
to the surface, the canoe bobbing about like a 
cockle-shell upon the angry flood, and the pet 
bear eying his mistress affectionately, as though 
fully sympathizing with her distress. 

It was only a moment, but an awful one, — 
it seemed an age to her. Would her husband 
ever rise? 

Her earnest gaze seemed to penetrate the 
very depths of the turbid water, — ^and then. 



“ ‘Drop down a little lower. I’m coming!’” — Page 46 





VAN BIBBER’S LEAP 


49 


with a joyous, thankful cry, she darted the 
canoe further down the stream. 

He rose to the surface quite near to her, and 
was able to scramble into the little craft with- 
out assistance, amid a shower of bullets, that 
was poured after him by the baffled pursuers, 
not one of which, however, harmed either him 
or his wife. 

Then, seizing the paddle from her hands, he 
swung the craft around, turning Brownie’s 
back to the hostile bank, and paddled swiftly 
out of range of the shots that were still showered 
after him. 

But it is more than likely that poor Brownie 
had much to do with the immunity with which 
his master and mistress were permitted to draw 
out of range. At any rate, when Van Bibber 
and his wife reached the shore, and were assisted 
to land by their rejoicing friends. Brownie 
remained seated motionless in the stern of the 
canoe, with his tongue hanging out and his eyes 
closed. 


50 GRANDFATHER’S TALES 

The bear was found to be stark dead. His 
back was fairly riddled with bullets, more than 
one of which must inevitably have reached the 
human occupants of the canoe but for the 
chance bulwark that had been presented by 
Brownie’s tough and shaggy frame. 

Captain Van Bibber experienced such a 
shock from his terrific leap that it was many 
days before he fully recovered. But he and 
his wife lived to a green old age, with their 
family around them, in the same fertile valley, 
and within the very shadow of the great over- 
hanging shelf which has ever since borne their 
name, in deserved commemoration of Van 
Bibber’s leap. 




Grandfather picked up a pine stick, of a good 
grain for whittling, tilted back his chair, opened 
his horn-handled jacknife, and began: 

“Now I am going to tell this in the same 
words, near as I can, that my grandfather told 
it to me, more than fifty years ago. So you must 
imagine it is your great-great-great grandfather 
Tyler who is talking. Well, one day in seventy- 
three, I think, he said, father came to me and 
said, ‘Son Tyler, you seem to have a natural gift 
for dickering, and you don’t seem to be good for 
much else. Peddling may be the best thing 
for you, but I’d rather seen you take to farming, 
I admit. ’ 


51 


S2 GRANDFATHER’S TALES 

“ Such was my father’s candid opinion of me 
at the age of eighteen. I am disposed to think 
it was not far from right. Every enterprising 
boy, it is said, “peddles’ at some time during his 
life. However that may be, I took to peddling 
at once. 

“I aspired to the grandeur of a two-horse 
cart; but my father, who was a New Hampshire 
man removed to Maryland, advised me to be 
content with one horse simplicity till my ‘ wisdom 
teeth’ were cut. I did not like to start out with 
one horse, but my father consoled me by giving 
me for my cart, ‘Plato,’ one of the best horses 
on our farm. 

“It is easy for me now to see what a good 
father I had. In his younger days, in the old 
Granite State, he had been a joiner as well as a 
farmer, and he and I now set at work to build 
my peddler’s cart. 

“It was in the winter, and I did not intend to 
set out on my first trip until April. We were at 


CAPTURING A BRITISH SPY 53 

work on the cart for a month. The old gentle- 
man became interested in it, and it was a staunch 
and thorough piece of work when it was done. 

“With money which my father advanced me 
and a certain sum of my own — the proceeds of 
previous dickering — I stocked up with tinware, 
‘notions,’ and a small line of dry goods and 
jewelry. Then I started out. 

“I succeeded moderately well, and had been 
peddling nearly four years when I gave it up to 
join Washington, near Philadelphia. But I 
only staid with him two weeks, then went back 
to my peddling. That started an uproar, 
especially among my own kin. Father didn’t 
speak to me for months, and one of my brothers 
said publicly that he’d a good mind to hang me 
with his own hands as a disgrace to the family 
and a money-hunting poltroon. You see, people 
were pretty rabid on patriotism in that neighbor- 
hood, and had no excuse for half-way loyalty. 
But they did’nt know what had passed between 


54 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


the general and me, and that I was enjoined to 
absolute secrecy. When great things are at 
stake it isn’t safe to have any one know what’s 
going on unless he is needed to help carry it out, 
and sometimes even a tin peddler’s cart may 
help change history. 

“Well, one night I put up at a tavern about 
twenty miles out of Baltimore, on my way to 
Fayette, where a consignment of jewelry and 
notions awaited me. It was my custom to start 
with a full cart from Fayette, and return to that 
city after a trip of seven or eight weeks with an 
empty one, but with four or five large sacks of 
paper rags lashed on top. 

“I still drove old Plato, and had not yet risen 
to the eminence of a two-horse cart. 

“The tavern in Anne Arundel County, where 
I put up, was a sufficiently respectable little 
place, kept by an old Kentuckian. I had often 
passed a night at the house. 

“There were two cattle drovers at the house 


CAPTURING A BRITISH SPY 


55 


this evening. While we were at supper a local 
politician joined us, and a little later another 
man arrived, who, it was soon whispered around, 
was a Major Snowdon from Baltimore in pursuit 
of a noted British spy, who had done more harm 
to the colonies than any other one man, and for 
whose capture a reward was offered. 

“I wished to reach Fayette early the following 
morning because I was several days behind my 
usual time. My goods had been at Fayette for 
four days already. I had also a note due there 
which I desired to take up. 

“Bearing in mind that the moon rose at a 
little past twelve o’clock that night, I resolved 
to take a nap, and get started by two in the 
morning. I could drive the twenty-two miles 
to Fayette and arrive in town next day during 
business hours. 

“I went to the dining-room, where the land- 
lord still sat at table with his latest guest, the 
major, to arrange for my unusually early de- 


56 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 



parture and explain 
my motive for it. This 
I did at some length, 
and I caught the eye 
of the major fixed on 
me in what I thought 
was a peculiar man- 
ner. 

“‘Not a very safe 
ride to take with money 
about you when that 
fellow Given is around,* 
he remarked. 

“‘Tve not said I 
had money about me,^ 
I rejoined. 

“‘No; but a man 
doesn’t go to buy goods 
and pay notes without it, generally, ’ he 
remarked with a smile. 


‘I should be glad enough of 
your company.” 


“‘That is as it may be,* I replied. ‘And as 


CAPTURING A BRITISH SPY 


57 


for Given, I guess he wouldn’t be out of his bed 
at that hour. ’ 

“‘Perhaps not,’ said the major. ‘I’d go with 
you if I thought he would be. ’ 

‘“Well, I should be glad enough of your 
company,’ I replied. He looked like a cool 
headed man, and he certainly had a remarkably 
keen eye. He was a powerful fellow, and at 
least six feet in his stockings. 

“There was a shower during the early part of 
the night, but when I turned out at one o’clock 
the sky had cleared and the moon had risen. I 
roused the hostler and assisted him to harness 
Plato to my cart, which had been backed under 
a shed near the stable. Then I climbed to my 
high seat and drove off along the road leading 
to Fayette. 

“For three or four miles there were farms. 
Then came a long stretch of woodland. The 
road was muddy, and although my cart was not 
heavily laden, I drove slowly. 


58 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


“ Presently Plato made a sudden leap and the 
fore wheels of my cart went into a mud-hole 
in the road, caused by the recent breaking down 
of a little causeway across it. I was almost 
unseated, and uttered an exclamation. At the 
same instant I was certain that I heard another 
smothered exclamation close beside or behind 
me! 

“As the fore wheels rose from the hole and the 
hind wheels fell into it, tilting me backward on 
my seat, I heard something slide backward 
inside my cart and bump against the tail-board. 

“I could feel my heart jump. What was in 
the cart ? Save for a little straw and a few paper 
rags, the vehicle was empty, I had supposed. 

“It occurred to me that I had an uninvited 
passenger. Perhaps some tramp was trying 
to steal a ride. But when I thought of the hour 
I dismissed that surmise. Besides the cart body 
had been locked. I had a good padlock, with a 
strong hasp and staple on the drop-door at the 
back. 


CAPTURING A BRITISH SPY 


59 


No one would have picked or broken that lock 
merely for*the purpose of stealing a ride or taking 
a nap in the cart. It must be somebody with a 
bad motive — someone who meant to rob me! 

I thought of the drovers and of the local 
politicians back at the tavern. There was little 
liklihood that any of these would attempt a 
robbery whatever might be their other short-. 
comings. Then I thought of Given, the British 

spy- 

“ There had been no further indication that the 
interior of my cart had an occupant. Perhaps 
I was mistaken. But I would soon know. 

“Winding my reins around the whip-socket, 
I stepped cautiously down upon the shaft and off 
into the mud without stopping my horse. Then 
as old Plato drew the cart along at his customary 
pace, I drew a pistol which I carried in my hip 
pocket and stepped in behind the cart. 

“The padlock was gone, and the hasp hung 
behind the staple. As the drop-door always fell 


60 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


down of its own weight when unlocked, I knew 
at a glance that it was now held up in place by 
some device applied from the inside. 

‘‘‘Since you are so bent on riding with me, 
old fellow, you shall go clear to Fayette,’ I 
thought. 

“Stuck in a little leather loop on the side of 
the cart near the hind end was an iron wrench, 
handle down. Withdrawing it, I quickly placed 
the hasp over the staple, and then thrust the 
long, straight handle of the wrench through it. 
The rattle of the cart in motion prevented the 
slight noise which I made from being noticeable, 

‘“There, old fellow, — ^whoever you are, — 
you’ll stay in there till I let you out!’ I said to 
myself. Then I went ahead, and climbed back 
to my seat. 

“ I heard nothing for a long time. Meanwhile 
we emerged from the woods, and came into a well 
trodden highway. Plato started forward at a 
trot. 


CAPTURING A BRITISH SPY 


61 


“Then I heard a movement in the cart, 
followed by a grating, grinding sound, as if 
force were being applied to the drop-door behind. 

“I listened. The sounds continued for some 
time with brief intervals of silence. I imagined 
the surprise of the rascal at finding the drop- 
door fast. 

“ Suddenly it occurred to me that probably he 
had firearms, and might shoot through the front 
of the cart, which was only three-fourths of an 
inch thick. I slipped down to the foot-board, 
and pulled one sack of paper-rags forward upon 
the seat that I had just vacated. 

“Presently the grating sounds were succeeded 
by kicks as if from a boot-heel, and by heavy 
thumps. The cart body creaked as if some one 
were pushing inside it with might and main. 

“I was not much afraid of its giving way, and 
I could not help laughing. My old father had 
put good work into that cart body. The fellow 
inside at length came to the same conclusion. 


62 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


apparently; for he relapsed into quiet for some 
minutes. 

“‘Hullo there, peddler!’ the voice from the 
inside repeated. 

‘“Who’s there?’ said I, rising so that my 
voice would indicate that my head was in the 
usual place, but drawing down again the instant 
after. 

“‘A man who got into your cart to take a nap. 
Let me out, won’t you?’ 

“‘That’s rather too thin,’ I said, rising up 
again. ‘I’m going to take you to Fayette with 
me.’ I dodged down again, and whipped up 
old Plato. 

“Mv passenger continued to hail me, asking 
to be let out, but for some time I did not reply. 
At last he fell into a fit of violent rage, cursing 
me and threatening me with death in direst 
forms. I drove on as fast as I could. 

“After one particularly vehement hail, I rose 
up to say, derisively, ‘ Oh, you finish your nap ! ’ 


CAPTURING A BRITISH SPY 


63 


“I had barely time to duck down my head, 
when, bang! went the muffled report of a pistol 
inside the cart, followed by a second, third and 
fourth shot in quick succession. 

“The villain was trying to shoot me in my 
seat! Powder smoke gushed out at the holes 
made by the bullets in the hickory board, but 
the balls stopped in the tightly packed rag-sack. 

“It occurred to me to practise a ruse upon 
him in order to prevent more shooting. I 
groaned several times, and cried out, ‘I’m a 
dead man!’ in a distressed tone. Plato trotted 
on rapidly. 

“Presently my passenger began crying, 
‘Whoa!’ thinking probably that I had fallen off 
and that Plato was going on of his own accord. 
I gave Plato a poke with my whipstock, and 
he trotted on. 

“For half an hour the man continued to 
shout, ‘Whoa!’ in tones first coaxing, then 
authoritative. The horse pricked his ears at 


64 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


times, and slackened his pace, but at a poke 
from my whipstock trotted on again. 

“Finding that he could not stop the horse, 
the man braced his feet against the top of the 
cart body, with his back on the bottom, and tried 
to burst it off. But the dove-tailed oak frame 
and iron bolts were too much for him. 

“For a long time he toiled and grunted vainly 
at his task, pausing at times to cry, ‘Whoa! 
Whoa!’ Meanwhile we approached within three 
miles of Fayette, and it began to grow light. 
Now I heard a sound from within the cart which 
startled me. The fellow was trying to cut his 
way out with a pocket-knife. The hickory 
boards were hard; but if he had a good knife he 
could whittle his way out in time. Therefore, 
I started up Plato. 

“ We now went on at a run. The pace and the 
motion probably disturbed the fellow’s operations. 
Perhaps he thought the horse had taken fright 
and was running away. He shouted, ‘Whoa!’ 
again and again. But I kept my horse at speed, 


CAPTURING A BRITISH SPY 


65 


entered the outskirts of the town, and headed for 
a tavern where I had sometimes put up. 

‘*It was now quite light, and as I turned into 
the tavern yard I was not sorry to see two hostlers 
engaged in washing wagons. 

“Getting down, I went back to the hind end 
of the cart, and tapped on the trap-door. 

‘“Where am I? Let me out!’ cried the 
prisoner. 

‘“Oh, we’ve come to a good safe stopping 
place,’ I replied. ‘And I’ll let you out in good 
time. ’ 

“‘Who are you.^*’ he exclaimed vaguely. 

“‘The peddler,’ said I. ‘Same one you 
thought you had shot. And mind you, my 
pistol is all ready for you. You had better lie 
quiet till I am ready to let you out. ’ 

“Hearing this curious dialogue, the two host- 
lers came to see what was going on. 

“‘One of you run for Captain Thorne,’ I said, 
‘and the other get an axe or gun, and stand by 
me here. I’ve got a queer bird inside my cart!’ 


66 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


“In the course of fifteen minutes, during 
which my man remained very quiet, the captain 
arrived. Several other men had come out from 
the tavern, As I briefly told my story the by- 
standers grinned. 

‘“Let down the door! said the captain. 
‘We’ll see what you’ve got.’ 

“I reached over the hind wheel from one side 
and let down the drop-door. It had no sooner 
fallen than a pistol flashed, and my passenger 
sprang out headlong. 

“He struck one hand upon the ground, and 
would have been on his feet in a moment more, 
for both the captain and all the others had 
jumped back, had I not improved my position 
of advantage behind the spy to dash in and seize 
him. He tried to turn and shoot me, but the 
captain had him by the collar next moment, and 
after a sharp scuffle he was overpowered. 

“I then perceived that our prisoner was none 
other than the major from Baltimore whom I 
had met the previous evening, and who had 



“My passenger sprang out headlong.” — Page 66 










CAPTURING A BRITISH SPY 


advised me to-be on the lookout for Given, the 
British Spy. 

‘‘Drawing Thorne aside, I hurriedly told him 
this. 

“‘But that isn’t Major Snowdon of Baltimore,’ 
exclaimed Thorne. ‘I know him very well. 
Unless I’m greatly mistaken this is Given 
himself!’ 

“During the morning the prisoner was fully 
identified as Given. The wily rogue had craftily 
passed himself as Major Snowdon in pursuit 
of Given. 

“At his trial, he admitted that his object in 
secreting himself in my cart had been to rob me 
of secret dispatches which he had discovered 
I carried. 

“Of course this let my secret out; but while it 
impaired my usefulness to General Washington 
in a measure, it suddenly changed my position 
as a disgrace in the family to the more agreeable 
one of hero.” 



It chanced that the schoolmaster, Mr. Burns, 
came to tea and spent the evening with us, the 
day after our first bean-picking, and the next 
evening (Saturday) a young couple came to the 
old Squire to be married, so that we did not get 
to work on the rusted beans again till the follow- 
ing Monday evening. 

But none of us young people had forgotten 
the promised story; and as soon as we were all 
gathered round the table, with the white cloth 
on it, and the beans were poured out, a quart 
before each picker, and grandmother had put 

70 


COLONEL ALLAN’S “MINUTE MAN 


71 


her “specs’’ on, and the old Squire had wiped 
and put on his, Addison spoke up for us all, — 

“Now, grandfather, give us that story.” 

“Let’s see, what story was it.^^” said the old 
gentleman, though no doubt he remembered 
well enough, only he did not want to begin too 
readily, or else wanted to see if we remembered. 

“How old Col. Allan and his boys, William, 
Mark and John, got the advantage of the British 
in Passamaquoddy Bay,” was the unanimous 
reply. 

“I tell you these stories of Col. Allan and his 
family,” the old Squire began, “because he was 
a man I admire. He was an earnest patriot, 
one who would sacrifice everything, even his own 
life, for his country. That is the kind of men 
we need in America, and I wish every American 
boy had the heart to make just that kind of a 
man. He was a man of strict truth and honor; 
his word was truth itself. 

“Everybody on the frontier, Indians as well 


72 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


as whites, knew that when Col. Allan said he 
would do a thing, it would be done. The secret 
of his power and mastery over the Indians was 
that they knew that he would neither deceive 
them, nor let others do so. He was also a tem- 
perate, a moral, and a God-serving man; one 
who believed that we have something to do in 
life; that we have high duties to perform, and 
that our truest happiness lies in doing those 
duties at whatever cost. I could desire nothing 
better than that every American boy would^take 
Col. John Allan as his model. 

“As I have told you, the British both feared 
and hated him, for they considered him a traitor 
to the King, as they did Washington and all our 
leaders in the Revolution. If taken, he would 
have been hanged no doubt, and many were the 
plots and traps laid to capture him. But this 
did not prevent the colonel from moving around 
as he chose. 

“He had a large barge named the Minute- 


COLONEL ALLAN’S “MINUTE MAN 


73 


Marty rigged for sixteen oars and a sail, and 
mounting a small swivel gun. In this barge he 
patrolled Passamaquoddy Bay, which is, as you 
know, at the extreme eastern corner of Maine, 
his object being to harass the enemy and damage 
him as much as possible. For war, you know, 
is the opposite of peace; war means both des- 
truction of life and destruction of property. The 
English had a great many war-ships, and a 
number of these were constantly cruising about 
Passamaquoddy Bay. The colonel and his 
little war-barge had some very narrow escapes 
from being captured by them. 

“One morning, having gone out with only his 
three boys, William, Mark and John, the wind 
being fresh, he hoisted sail and stood up through 
Lubec Channel into the bay, to see what the 
enemy were about. Scudding along to where 
the main expanse of the Bay came into view, 
William stood up for a look all around. 

‘“What do ye see, Billy?’ said the colonel, 
who was steering . 


74 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


“‘A big British ship of war at anchor over 
towards the ‘ head, ’ two fishing-boats, and some- 
thing I can’t make out up towards the Nar- 
rows. ’ 

“‘You take a look, Mark,” said the 
colonel. ‘You’ve got pretty good eyes.’ 

Mark stood up. 

‘“It’s a big raft of lumber, sir!’ he exclaimed. 
‘I can see the fresh sawn deals, and there’s a 
crew of men on it, fifteen or twenty of them, 
sir.’ 

“‘Load up old Tige, Billy,’ said the colonel 
and at once headed the little Minute-Man for 
the raft. 

“‘Old Tige’ was the swivel gun, a small 
cannon carrying a four-pound ball fixed on a 
pivot in the bow of the barge. 

“‘But father, there’s the big Britisher off 
there, a sixty-gun ship. We’ll have to run up 
past her to tackle that raft. ’ 

“‘Never mind her, boy. She’s anchored, 
hitched hard and fast to the bottom. ’ 


COLONEL ALLAN’S “MINUTE MAN 


75 


“‘But there are her launches, father.’ 

Why, boy, are we afraid of a British launch ? ’ 
cried the colonel. 

“William was ramming a charge into the 
swivel, and meantime the saucy little Minute- 
Man stood boldly up past the big frigate and 
headed straight for the raft, which was being 
slowly worked down out of the St. Croix River. 
There were twenty lumbermen on it, about half 
of whom were armed with muskets. For it was 
a very large and valuable raft, containing not 
less than five hundred thousand feet of logs and 
deals piled on the logs. Counting on the prox- 
imity of the British frigate, the raftsmen had 
entertained no fear of the Americans. 

“But the little barge stood straight up towards 
them, and with a fresh and very stiff breeze in 
her sail, was rapidly nearing them. In five 
minutes it had come up within half a mile. 

‘“Now Billy,’ cried the colonel, ‘bear a hand 
at the tiller here! You, Mark, and Jack, stand 
by the sheets, while I take a shot at ’em!’ 


76 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


“It was difficult to get aim, with the barge 
careening smartly and dashing ahead. But 
when the colonel blew the match, a four-pound 
ball ran skipping along the tops of the waves, and 
bounded over the big raft so close down to the 
heads of the raftsman that they all threw them- 
selves flat down on the deals, and one man was 
seen to jump overboard. 

‘“Another powder cartridge, Mark!’ cried the 
colonel, warming up to his work as gunner. 
‘And pass me another four-pound ball while 
you are about it. Steady there, Billy! Mind 
your helm, boy. Pass the match, Mark.’ 

“‘Bang!’"^ again spoke the little swivel; and 
this time a board flew up from the raft; this last 
ball had grazed the top of the deals. By this 
time a panic had fallen on the raft’s crew. 
Some of the men were shouting, — 

“‘S/iip ahoy! Frigate ahoy there!’ hoping 
to get assistance from the man-of-war; others 
were objurgating the Minute-Man^ and firing 


COLONEL ALLAN’S “MINUTE MAN 


77 



off their muskets; but 
with the colonel’s third 
ball, they all took to 
their bateaus^ which were 
in tow of the raft, and 
pulled for the New 
Brunswick shore as fast 
as they could. 

“‘Steady, now, Billy!’ 
cried the old Colonel. 

‘Lay her alongside the 
raft. Be ready to let go 
that sheet, Mark.’ In 
another minute the 
barge was bumping the 

Breaking up the raft. 

leeward side oi the great 

raft; and the colonel, seizing an axe, jumped 
aboard it. 

“Such lumber rafts are usually fastened to- 
gether with cross-poles and pins, or else with 
warps; and the colonel’s practised eye was not 


78 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


long discovering where to plant his blows to 
break it up. With the assistance of Mark and 
William — ^while John stood by the barge — he 
was not many moments cutting off every cross- 
pole; and then almost before they could leap 
back into the barge, the great mass of lumber 
began to dissolve beneath their feet and float off 
in all directions, tossing on the waves and going 
going out to sea with the tide. 

“But they had scarcely accomplished this 
exploit and leaped back into their barge, when 
boom! went a heavy gun, and a round shot from 
the man-of-war came plunging down into the 
the water off to windward. The frigate had 
waked up at last! 

‘“Tack, and stand away for home, now, boys!’ 
shouted the colonel. 

‘“But, father, look o’ there!’ cried Mark, 
‘ There comes the British launch round her 
quarter. See the cutlasses flash!’ 

“‘There come two of her other boats!’ ex- 




COLONEL ALLAN’S “MINUTE MAN ’ 



“‘They’ll catch us this time father. ” — Page 82 















COLONEL ALLAN’S “MINUTE MAN 


81 


claimed William; ‘full of marines, too; and the 
launch has a brass gun which they’re training 
for us!’ 

“‘Never mind their gun, boys!’ cried the 
colonel; ‘give me the tiller. Stand by the sheet 
and do as I bid ye. ’ 

“The Minute-Man stood off and on, to beat 
out past the man-of-war’s launch and boats; 
but perceiving his intention, the enemy bore down 
the bay so far as to soon make it evident that the 
Americans would be overhauled, before they 
could double out past the west head, on the 
Maine shore of the bay. 

“‘They’ll take us, father, off the “head,” 
sure!’ exclaimed Mark. 

“‘Looks like it,’ admitted the colonel. ‘But 
never mind, boy; there’s more’n one way to do a 
thing! Stand by and we’ll try ’em a race up the 
bay!’ 

“Round came the Minute-Man and scudded 
away again. But the launch and boats, fully 


82 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


manned, were coming on gallantly, and were now 
within half a mile of the barge; and though 
the colonel might prolong the race up the bay 
his capture at the head of it was only a question 
of time — or at least seemed so. It looked as 
if the Minute-Man had made his last cruise. 

“‘They’ll catch us this time, father,’ said Mark 
dubiously. 

“‘Not a bit of it, boy! There’s more’n one 
way to play with old King George. See that 
wooded point yonder, on the Maine shore. 
Head straight for that, then lay her round into 
the little cove, inside it. There’s deep water in 
there. I’ve sounded it’. 

“The barge’s sail hardly held its own against 
the oars of the launch and boats, manned as 
they were by forty or fifty stout British man- 
of-war’s men; nevertheless, the Minute-Man 
doubled the wooded point and came round into 
the little cove inside it, a long distance ahead of 
the launch. 


COLONEL ALLAN’S ‘‘MINUTE MAN*‘ 


83 


“The water was here ten or twelve feet deep 
up to within a few rods of the shore; and no 
sooner was the Minute-Man round the point, out 
of sight of the pursuing boats, than the colonel 
cried, — 

“‘Off with your jackets, boys, and be ready 
to swim ashore!’ 

“At the same moment he struck and lowered 
the mast, then with a hatchet, knocked a large, 
six-inch plug out of the bottom of the barge. 

“They had barely time to jump overboard and 
strike out for the shore, when the barge sank out 
of sight, in ten or twelve feet of water. The 
colonel and his boys had just enough time to get 
to cover in the alder bushes, when the three 
boats came sweeping gallantly round the point, 
their oflScers thinking that now, at last, they had 
the Minute-Man in a corner. 

“But to their astonishment, no barge was in 
sight, nor yet any of its crew. The lieutenant 
in command of the launch rubbed his eyes. 


84 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


looked again, and then hailed the other two 
boats. But none of them could even guess what 
had become of it. The sailors and marines 
stared and shook their heads in superstitious 
astonishment. They rowed back and forth for 
some time; then finding that not so much as a 
hair of the Minute-Man was to be discovered, 
they pulled back to the frigate. 

^‘Meantime Col. Allan and his sons had lain 
in the bushes, laughing in their sleeves at the 
mystification of their pursuers. When the boats 
were gone, they wrung out their dripping gar- 
ments and made a short cut for home across the 
country. 

‘‘A few days later the colonel returned, with a 
party of men and Indians, and raised the Minute- 
Man, which was taken out of the bay under 
cover of the darkness the following night; and 
shortly after the enemy were doubly astonished 
to see the little barge scud into the bay again, 
as saucy as ever. There was more superstition 


COLONEL ALLAN’S “MINUTE MAN” 


85 


in the world then than now ; and not a few of the 
enemy believed that Col. Allan was in league 
with the evil one, who aided him to appear and 
disappear in his barge at will.” 



/ 



In one of the most beautiful parts of the valley of 
the Brandywine, not far from where the nistoric 
stream curves around the bold bluff of Point 
Lookout, there stood in Revolutionary days, 
and still stands, a farmhouse of the good old 
colonial type. The blue smoke curling upward 
from its wide chimneys seemed always to savor 
of the good cheer within, and over its spreading 
roof the branches of great maples hung. At 
one side was the orchard, ana by its edge wound 
the lane, to join the road beyond. 

One day in October, 1777, the autumn sun- 
beams sifting down through the leaves of the 
86 


THE CAPTURED HESSIAN 


87 


maples flickered upon the curly heads and home- 
spun clothes of two boys, who, seated on the great 
stepping-stone in front of the door,’Vere busily 
digging in the dust with their bare toes. They 
were brothers, and their father — ^whose name, 
with the date 1760, was cut on the stone beneath 
them — ^was a Quaker of the strictest type. 

As this was Fifth day, he had ridden off, with 
his wife behind him, to Birmingham meeting- 
house, a few miles up the valley, in spite of the 
danger from roving bands from the British army. 
The boys were left at home, for the father judged 
them safer there, especially as a body of Conti- 
nentals were encamped by the stream below the 
house. 

Suddenly David, the elder boy, dropped a 
walnut-bur on his brother’s toe, then, jumping 
behind a tree to protect his own feet, he shouted, 
“Let’s feed our chickens. I’ll race thee to the 
barn!” 

In a moment two pair of brown legs were 


88 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


twinkling in the sunlight as their owners spurted 
toward the great stone barn, hidden from the 
house by the grove of maples. Past the corn- 
crib they raced, and up the slope to where the 
great barn-doors stood wide open, letting in a 
flood of sunshine on the hay-strewn floor. It 
was still quite early in the day. 

They had reached the threshold nearly abreast 
when both lads stopped short and stood amazed. 
Well they might be, for, on a pile of hay just 
within the doors, lay a red-coat — a Hessian 
captain, judging from his long boots and his 
uniform, — sleeping heavily, with his sword and 
pistols lying beside him. 

With one impulse the boys turned and ran» 
never stopping until they were safe behind the 
corn-crib, out of sight of the red-coat, should he 
awake. What could a British soldier be doing 
in their barn ? There could be but one explana- 
tion : He must be the leader of a night-foraging 
party; he must have lain in the barn for a nap 


THE CAPTURED HESSIAN 


89 



while his men went 
about the neighborhood. 

They must have struck 
the American camp and 
been driven across the 
Brandywine, away from 
their sleeping captain. 

That would explain the 
firing which the boys 
had heard in the night. 

They could not allow 
a Hessian to sleep in 
their barn, especially as 
they had seen some of 
their pet chickens, with 
twisted necks, lying be- 
side him, ready to be 
carried off. 

What should they do? If they went to the 
Continental camp for aid, he might awake while 
they were gone and escape with the chickens. 


‘Just within the doors lay a 
red-coat,” 


90 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


Young as they were, they readily imagined that 
he would burn the barn, and even the house 
itself, if there were time, for they never reflected 
that he would be exceedingly careful to do 
nothing likely to attract notice from the Conti- 
nentals. 

“Ezra,” said David, “we must get his sword 
and pistols, and then force him to go down to the 
camp! It is the only way.” 

Little Ezra trembled at the audacity of this 
proposition but both felt that the case was des- 
perate, and nerved by this they crept stealthily 
back, until they could again look on the sleeping 
enemy. Then David, angered by the sight of 
the murdered fowls, stole the pistols and the 
sword away from the sleeper’s side. He gave 
a pistol to Ezra, who immediately got as far 
away from the hand that held it as possible, and 
kept the sword and the other pistol for himself. 

At this junctme the prostrate soldier snored, 
and the boys, as if pulled by a string, scampered 


THE CAPTURED HESSIAN 


91 


backward out of the barn. David, tripping 
over the sword, fell sprawling down one side of 
the incline, while Ezra rolled down the other. But 
nothing threatening followed, and after cautious- 
ly regaining their weapons, they held a council 
of war, and decided upon a plan of action. 

Again the boys crept softly through the door, 
and, while David hid himself behind some 
shocks of corn within the shadow of the corner, 
Ezra climbed to the hay-mow, having first, to 
his great relief, hidden his pistol among the corn. 
He carried with him, instead, a sack half-filled 
with grain. 

Ezra, having reached his post, from which he 
could slip out of sight in an instant, overturned 
his load, and a cataract of golden wheat des- 
cended upon the unprotected face of the soldier. 

In an instant he was awake. Confused and 
blinded by the shower, he sprang to his feet, 
groping vainly for his weapons. In a moment 
he would have been out and away, but David’s 


92 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


voice rang out, sounding, muffled by the corn, 
iike a man’s: “If thee moves, I will shoot 
thee.” The captain stopped irresolute. “If 
thee looks behind thee, or tries to escape, I 
will shoot thee through the heart. Thee 
must do just as I tell thee to do. Go out 
of the door and follow the path to the left, and 
mind thee doesn’t look behind thee!” David 
stopped, startled at his own boldness. 

The Hessian, sullenly obeying, stalked out into 
the sunlight, followed by David, the sword hitting 
against his bare legs at every step. Ezra slipped 
down from the mow, regaining not very joyfully 
his pistol, and came on behind. 

The redcoat felt sure that the mysterious 
command must be obeyed. Once before he had 
heard that Quaker “thee,” and the memory 
was most clear, if not most pleasant. When 
first brought to England from his German home 
he had, when given over to ale and ale-filled 
companions, tried to break up one of the peace- 


THE CAPTURED HESSIAN 9^ 

ful meetings of some Quakers. He had a vivid 
recollection of a young man in a collarless coat, 
who, following him out of the little meeting- 
house, had said, “Although it is to the great hurt 
of my soul, it may be to the betterment of thine, 
therefore I shall try to drive Satan out of thee,’* 
and had thereupon given him such a thrashing 
that it hurt him yet to think of it. 

With many muttered oaths and speculations 
as to who his captors could be, the Hessian strode 
along, making no effort to escape, for he heard 
the clink of the sword, and where it was he felt 
the pistols must be also. 

A strange and most ludicrous picture the trio 
presented, as they marched one^ after another 
down the path toward the river, over the fields 
where the shocks of corn stood in the golden 
October sunshine, and the pumpkins lay chang- 
ing from green to yellow. Down through the 
rich meadows, shaded here and there by great 
oaks and tulip-treees, they marched, and through 


94 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


the spicewood thickets by the waterside. At 
last they emerged from the bushes into an open 
grove, beside which rippled the Brandywine. 
Scattered under the trees were the tents and 
lean-to’s of the Continentals’ camp. 

No sooner was the queer procession seen than 
it was surrounded by a laughing, cheering crowd 
of soldiers, for discipline was not strict in those 
days, and the merriment was redoubled when the 
Hessian, daring at last to look around, went wild 
with rage and chagrin upon discovering the size 
of his captors. 

But David and Ezra were on their dignity, 
and without a smile they brought the prisoner up 
to where the gray-haired colonel stood, drawn 
from his tent by the commotion. David there 
called out, just as he had heard the soldiers do, 

‘ ‘ Halt, prisoner ! Attention ! ’ ’ He then brought 
the great sword to his shoulder, and saluted with 
the pistol, Ezra following suit. 

“What is this, boys.^” said the colonel, with a 


THE CAPTURED HESSIAN 


95 



*A strange and most ludicrous picture the trio presented.” — Page 93 




i 


THE CAPTURED HESSIAN 


97 


kindly smile. “Have you been raiding King 
George’s camp, and brought back a prisoner.?” 

“No,” answered David, “but, thee sees, this 
soldier was sleeping in our barn, and had killed 
our chickens, and probably meant to do more, 
so we got his sword and pistols, and made him 
come down here to thee, and — ” 

Here Ezra broke in: “Thee won’t tell 
mother will, thee .? For she would think it was 
fighting, and then Friend Cope would speak 
about us in First-day meeting.” 

Ezra’s voice was drowned by a roar of laughter 
from the circle of soldiers, and the colonel, 
smiling, promised to make it all right with their 
mother by going home with them and telling her 
what brave boys she had, if they would first 
honor him by taking dinner in camp. At which 
the boys were struck with pride and embarass- 
ment in a way wonderful to see. 

That dinner! The boys looked back to it 
with pride for the rest of their lives ! How they 


9S 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


toasted their country, and Washington and the 
army, and everything else they could think of, 
in sweet Delaware cider, and how, much to their 
own confusion, they were toasted themselves! 

But the crowning touch of all came when the 
Hessian, who had recovered his spirits after a 
hearty meal, entered, attended by his guards, 
and begged leave in very bad English to shake 
his two captors by the hand, and asked per- 
mission to present David with the sword and 
Ezra with the pistols which they had held before 
under different circumstances, saying, that they 
were from “vun old soldier to two young vuns.’^ 
So he was a good-hearted Hessian, after all! 

That sword and those pistols, after doing even 
better service than before for their country in the 
War of 181 ‘' 2 , now hang in an old colonial man- 
sion on the banks of the Brandywine, and many 
a youth has been inspired to true patriotism by 
the story of how his ancestors used them in the 
days gone by. 



A YOUNG PATRIOT’S RUSE 


There was a new hired man, and grandpa was 
kept about the barn and carriage-house later 
than usual, showing the man his duties. Then 
another half hour was taken up at the supper 
table. When at last they went back to the sitting 
room the children’s impatience was beyond con- 
cealment. They surrounded grandpa in a body. 

“Why, why, why!” he exclaimed, throwing 
up his hands in affected dismay; I won’t resist. 
Take everything I’ve got.” 

“It’s a story — a Revolutionary story,” de- 
manded Harold implacably. “You must give 
it to us at once, without opposition or question.” 

“A story — But I thought Grandma — ” 

99 


100 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


“Grandma told hers last night. It’s your 
turn now.’^ 

“Oh, well,” resignedly, but with a twinkle in 
his eyes that showed the story was all ready and 
only waiting to be drawn out* “Let me see. I 
don’t think I ever told you about the awful leap 
young Demarest took in the dark. No. Well, 
in May, 1779, “The Patriot Miller” Demarest 
owned and operated the grist-mill that still stands 
though abandoned and in a ruinous condition, 
near Demarest, New Jersey. In the house about 
one hundrea yards away the sturdy miller lived 
with his two sons and two daughters, within full 
view of the shadowy woods sweeping up the 
western slope of the Hudson Palisades. 

“At midnight, on the eleventh day of that 
month of May, the miller was awakened by 
sounds that he had for many a night expected 
to arouse him, 

“He seized his musket, called his sons Cor- 
nelius and Hancomb, and followed by them. 


A YOUNG PATRIOT’S RUSE 101 

ran quickly down-stairs and out at the back door. 
This was the third time they had been thus 
roused to repel the attempts of marauding 
Royalists to steal their horses. 

“This time they were too late to save the 
animals. The party of marauders had already 
led two fine horses from the barn, and were in 
the saddle again when the miller and his sons 
arrived. 

“The two parties perceived each other at the 
same moment, and fired on the instant. 
Demarest and his sons were unhurt, but a yell 
from one of the raiding party showed that he was 
struck; but they rode away at the top of their 
speed, leaving the miller and his sons alone. 

“Cornelius Demarest was twenty, Hancomb 
eighteen years of age; both tall and strong. 
Their mother was dead, and they were princi- 
pally solicitous for their young sisters, Mav and 
Lucy. 

“The miller had made himself obnoxious to 


102 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


the British and Tories by frequently furnishing 
supplies of meal and flour to Washington’s 
army, encamped at the little village of Tappan, 
a few miles away. 

“They expected a return of the party, and 
soon they were visited again. Shortly after 
nightfall on the second day after their encounter, 
Mr. Demarest went to the spring not far from 
the house to fetch water. 

“The boys heard a shout from their father, 
and rushed out at the door. The mill was on 
fire. They could see figures moving about in 
light of the fire. 

“ ‘ They’ve got father prisoner. There he is ! ” 
cried Hancomb, pointing to a group where a 
struggle was going on. 

“At that moment there were two quick reports 
of musket-shots, and both boys fell to the ground 
and lay prone on the grass not far from the door. 

“May and Lucy ran to the door, where they 
were confronted by a party of troopers. The 


A YOUNG PATRIOT’S RUSE 


103 


leader seized May by the arm, and pointed with 
a fierce gesture down the sloping lawn. 

‘“Out of this. Your brothers are there. 
They’ve ground their last grist.’ 

“The party rushed in to complete the work of 
robbery and destruction. Only one man on 
guard remained at the front of the house. 

“Lucy and May ran to the back where their 
brothers lay. Trembling with fear, they listened 
to discover if their hearts were beating, and were 
overjoyed to find that both were still alive. It 
was but the work of a few moments to bring 
Hancomb back to consciousness, for a bullet had 
barely grazed his skull. 

“As soon as he arose to his feet the duty of 
rescuing his father came back to his mind. 

“‘Stay here and keep quiet,’ he said. ‘I’m 
off.’ 

“Hancomb leaped the low stone wall at the 
base of the slope, and crept along in its shadow 
till he reached the granary, beneath which were 


104 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


several partially decayed pumpkins. He 
selected the hardest and moved toward the 
sentry, keeping in the dark shadow of a group 
of pines. The noise of the marauders in the 
house enabled him to approach within a few feet 
of the guard, who was intently observing the 
road. 

‘‘Carefully poising the pumpkin, Hancomb 
sent it straight at the head of the Tory on guard. 
It struck true to the mark, broke into a dozen 
pieces, and laid the trooper senseless upon the 
grass. 

“Hancomb dragged the stunned man within 
the shadows of the pines, bound him with a halter 
strap, and gagged him with his own handker- 
chief as soon as he began to recover breath. 
Then the boy stripped the trooper of his coat, 
boots, and accoutrements, and put them on. 

“Having secured the hat and musket of his 
fallen foe, Hancomb rushed to the door to per- 
sonate the sentry. He shouted: 


A YOUNG PATRIOT’S RUSE 


105 


“‘Run for your horses! There’s a rescue 
party coming!’ 

“The men who were sacking the house in- 
stantly ran out in a panic, leaped the fence, and 
rushed down the road to where their companions 
and horses were concealed. 

“With no definite plan, but trusting to some 
favoring opportunity to assist his father to escape, 
Hancomb was first to reach the men with the 
horses. He jumped upon the nearest horse, 
and seized the bridle of that upon which his 
father sat, gagged and bound. 

“‘Forward!’ shouted the captain. ‘Prisoner 
to the front. * 

“Away they swept down the dark highway 
toward the city of New York. 

“They had gone but a short distance when 
the captain, spurring his horse to the side of the 
miller, seized the bridle opposite to the side upon 
which Hancomb rode. A fear that he was dis- 
covered thrilled through the boy. 


106 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


“‘Here, you!’ said the captain. ‘See that you 
keep a tight hold on this bridle, and watch the 
prisoner’s hands. If we are overtaken, shoot 
him on the spot rather than let him escape. ’ 
“‘Let me alone for that,’ growled Hancomb, 
in a disguised voice. ‘I’d like to see the corn- 
husking rebel escape.’ 

“With no suspicion of the hidden meaning in 
the supposed trooper’s reply, the officer, satisfied 
that the prisoner had a zealous guardian, 
dropped the bridle, and with a growl at the moon, 
which was just breaking through the clouds, 
rode forward. 

“Hancomb now felt secure from discovery as 
long as the general panic continued. He pre- 
tended to examine the miller’s bound wrists, 
and repeated loudly what he had replied to the 
captain : ‘ I’d like to see you escape. ’ 

“The prisoner turned toward his brave son, 
and the flash of recognition shone in his eye. 
But he made no sign. 


A YOUNG PATRIOT’S RUSE 


107 



A blow from the brawny miller’s fist sent the leader reeling 
from his saddle.” — Page 110 

















A YOUNG PATRIOT’S RUSE 


109 


“Fast and furious they sped away, the spark 
from the horses’ hoofs flashing like a flight of 
tiny meteors in the darkness. Now and then, 
as they skurried past a roadside farm-house, a 
white-robed figure would be seen at a window, 
wondering what mischief was abroad. 

“At the top of a hill the leader called a halt, 
to listen. But no sound of pursuit was heard. 

“‘We’ve shaken them off,’ said the captain, 
with glee. ‘ Forward ! ’ 

In the confusion of the few moments’ halt 
Hancomb had leaped to the ground, put down 
his head to avoid recognition, and busied him- 
self with the trappings of his horse. At the word 
‘Forward’ he rose, and the keen blade of his 
knife cut through the rope binding the captive’s 
hands. At the same time he saw that his father 
bestrode one of the stolen horses. 

“Hancomb’s position was becoming more 
hazardous. Now the leader, feeling secure 
from pursuit, advanced to the head of the party. 


110 


GRANDFATHER’S TAI.ES 


“By adroit maneuvering the Demares ts had 
dropped somewhat to the rear, when a weird 
sound — ^now faint, now deep and hoarse — ^rose 
above the hoof-beats. It was familiar to the 
patriots, but appalling to the troopers. 

“They drew rein and stood silently listening 
in a confused and widely separated group. 

“Now they were near where stands the present 
village of Tenafly, near a deep-lined forest-gorge, 
in which there is a succession of waterfalls called 
the “Caulders,” leading up to the Hudson 
Palisades. Hancomb saw that the opportunity 
for escape had come. The moon was now 
hidden, and it was quite dark. 

“ ‘ Now ! ’ Hancomb whispered. 

“They managed to face up the road. The 
miller lashed his horse with his belt-strap, and 
dashed forward. The captain was between him 
and liberty, but only for an instant, for a blow 
from the miller’s brawny fist sent the leader 
reeling from his saddle. 


A YOUNG PATRIOT’S RUSE 


111 


There was a chorus of yells from the astonished 
group of troopers. 

“‘After him, boys!’ shouted the sergeant. 
‘He’s broken the captain’s head. Take him 
alive, and we’ll roast him for this. ’ 

“‘I’ll take him alive, or die in the attempt,’ 
exclaimed Hancomb, And before those who 
were not assisting their leader could recover 
from the sudden confusion, he galloped after the 
fugitive. 

“Soon he was close behind his father. The 
miller, who had snatched off the gag, turned to 
his son. 

“‘Hancomb,’ he said, ‘we can never keep up 
this pace; and if we do they will shoot us when 
we pass back near them round the bend in the 
road ahead. We must take to the marshes till 
the troopers pass, then climb the slope to the old 
Indian trail on the top of the Palisades.’ 

“‘Yes, it’s our only chance. They’re after 
us.’ 


112 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


“As the moon broke through the clouds, the 
crack of a pistol mingled with the hoof-beats. 
Hancomb was doubtless suspected. 

“Another shot. The hat of the young patriot 
rolled in the dust. A shout went up from the 
troopers as he was seen to fall forward, as though 
struck by the bullet. But he had merely thrown 
himself upon the horse’s neck to shield himself 
as much as possible. 

“Next moment the bend in the road was 
passed. 

“Checking the speed of the horses, the miller 
and his son leaped to the ground just as the 
pursuers swept round the curve. 

“To the left of the road were a few straggling 
trees, with a moonlit meadow beyond, and then 
the marshes. To the right was a stream lined 
with rushes. 

“The hillside was echoing to the pursuers’ 
exultant yells, when the Demarests leaped across 
the road to the right, and were lost to view. The 


A YOUNG PATRIOT’S RUSE 


113 


troopers dismounted with a great deal of uproar. 
The captain’s order to beat the banks of the 
stream could be heard above the tumult. 

“‘Keep close behind me, and in the shadow 
of the rushes,’ said the miller. 

“‘But the rushes end a little way ahead. 
What shall we do then 

‘“Strike up the hill-side. It is the only thing 
we can do.’ 

‘‘They soon reached a mass of low thick- 
set bushes, extending for some distance up the 
side of the hill. From this point they must cross 
a wide, open space in order to reach the woods. 

“They had hardly cleared a thhd of the dis- 
tance when a fierce yell showed that they were 
discovered. On they went, over the thin grass 
and the smooth outcropping rocks. 

“They had nearly reached the edge of the 
wood when a volley was fired. Then came a 
shout of triumph as Hancomb was seen to fall. 

‘“Son, are you hurt.^^’ asked the miller. 


114 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


“‘Not a scratch, father. I stepped into a 
hole. We’ll give ’em the slip yet. Thank God 
we have reached the woods. But see! they’re 
coming. ’ 

“‘Yes. It won’t do to take the trail. We 
must get down the rocks to the river if we can. ’ 

“After running a few rods homeward they 
turned east, toward the Palisades. 

“This lofty, picturesque wall of igneous rock 
is familiar enough as seen from the Hudson 
River. For almost its entire length its top is a 
narrow, forest-grown plateau, which descends at 
the west in irregular slopes to the Hackensack 
Valley. 

“The basaltic formation forms groups of huge 
columns, whose flat upper surfaces sometimes 
rise one above the other, like steps cut in the 
rocks. Here and there the giant ridge is in- 
dented by steep slopes, clothed with a stunted 
growth of bushes and small trees. 

“Now a noisy confusion of voices came rolling 


A YOUNG PATRIOT’S RUSE 


115 


through the forest. Hancomb, pausing for an 
instant, heard the command given to search the 
surrounding underbush where he had fallen. 
The troopers doubtless expected to find him 
wounded, and the miller with him. 

“They soon found they were approaching the 
verge of the vast escarpment, at the base of 
which four hundred feet below them, rolled the 
Hudson. 

“‘That was a lucky fall of mine,’ said Han- 
comb. Tt has thrown them off the scent.’ 

“‘Yes; but we are not out of the woods yet, 
my boy. Caution’s the word. Keep in the 
darkest shadows, and be silent. ’ 

‘“Why not go down the first slope we come to, 
and work up the river ? ’ 

‘“W^e would break our necks. It’s dangerous 
enough in daylight, doubly so with the cliff in a 
deep shadow like this. No, that will never do. 
We’ll strike straight for home. I believe we 
have shaken off the enemy. No! Good hea- 
ven! They’ve got a dog on the trail!’ 


116 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


“The wind brought to their ears the baying 
of a hound, and the sound was rapidly ap- 
proaching them. 

“To retrace their steps meant capture, at 
their right was the precipitous wall of the Pali- 
sades. From the left the baying of the dog 
sounded nearer and nearer. Before them 
stretched an open, moonlit glade, a hundred 
yards and more in width. They sped forward 
into the telltale moonlight. Scarcely had they 
left the shadow of the trees when a party of their 
pursuers leaped from the woods in hot pursuit. 

“Not a shot was fired. It was evident that 
the intention was to capture the fugitives alive. 
Weary from their exertions, the Demarests were 
rapidly gained upon. 

“Hancomb was just behind his father* Sud- 
denly he turned to the right, and sped toward the 
brink of the frightful precipice a hundred yards 
away. 

“Puzzled by this unaccountable movement. 


A YOUNG PATRIOT’S RUSE 


117 


the pursuers slack- 
ened their speed. 
Some ran cautious- 
ly in the direction 
the boy had taken. 
The hound led the 
advance. 

“For a moment 
the form of the 
young hero stood 
out against the 
eastern sky. Then 
after one glance 
backward, and a 
longer, steadier 
look into the gulf 
before him, he 
leaped into the 
air and was gone. 

“Next moment 
the hound, unable 



118 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


to stop his speed, shot forward with a cry al- 
most human, into the dark abyss. He yelled; 
then there was a faint rattle of dislodged debris, 
and all was still. 

“The spectators, their hot blood chilled by 
this supreme act, gathered upon the rocky verge 
and held brief council before they turned and 
moved slowly up the glade. 

“In the meantime the miller, thinking Han- 
comb not far behind him, had plunged into the 
dark shadows of the forest. Missing the sound 
of his son’s course through the bushes, the father 
turned and found himself alone. He had heard 
no outcry, no shot; and where were Hancomb, 
the Tories, and the hound 

“The miller retraced his steps with the inten- 
tion of going to his son’s rescue, at the risk of his 
own life. He saw through the trees the excited 
group peering over the rocky verge of the chff. 
He saw the men turn and disappear in the forest. 
Then all the world was dark with horror to the 
patriot father. 


A YOUNG PATRIOT’S RUSE 119 

“ When he looked again the glade was vacant, 
and nothing was heard save the rustle of the 
leaves. A white cloud swept into the halo of the 
moon ; to the father’s half -crazed fancy it seemed 
like the ascending spirit of his son. 

“The miller crept toward the precipice, looked 
down into the awful darkness, and moaned : 

“‘Hancomb! O Hancomb!’ 

“The words had hardly died away when a 
whisper came up from below, thrilling the already 
overwrought nerves of the listener. Then he 
heard a scraping noise, and a black head rose 
above the edge of the cliff. 

“‘All right, father,’ Hancomb whispered. 
‘Lend a hand.’ 

“The revulsion of feeling in the miller almost 
sent him over the brink, but in another moment 
the brave boy was standing beside him. Tears 
stood in the old man’s eyes as he folded his arms 
around his son. 

“‘Tell me, Hancomb, how did you dodge ’em, 
and how did you get here.^^’ 


120 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


“‘Well, you see, father, when we had nearly 
reached the woods across the glade, I thought 
that if I could get rid of the dog there would be 
some chance of escape/ 

“ ‘ Yes; but there was the chance of being shot. ’ 

“‘Well, I didn’t think of that. I thought if 
the dog followed closely he might not be able to 
stop himself on the smooth rocks; and that was 
just what happened. He was close at my heels. 
I stopped a second or two on the edge, and he 
came on faster than ever. I could see the 
narrow upper surface of a column, three or four 
feet below, and I jumped for it. 

“‘Then I thought I was gone, for a large piece 
of rock gave way beneath me just as the dog 
bounded over my head. But I hung on with my 
hands, and then let myself down to the next 
ledge, about four feet lower. There I found a 
fissure and crept into it. The Tories could not 
see me. 

“‘I heard them consultinp*. They said they 


A YOUNG PATRIOT’S RUSE 121 

had had revenge enough, and one of us was in a 
grave four hundred feet deep; and they had no 
dog to find you. So I knew they were giving 
up the pursuit.’ 

‘‘The saffron glow of morning was mantling 
the east as the Demarests, standing upon a rocky 
eminence, looked down upon their hill-side farm. 
The wind had died away, and in the still air 
columns of blue smoke rose from their ruined 
home. But the mill had been saved, and there 
the sisters were found nursing their wounded 
brother. 

“ A substantial mansion rose on the site of the 
burned house, and the old mill furnished many 
a goodly store of flour and meal to Washington’s 
patriot army at Tappan.” 



“The critter’s gone!” 

“Clean gone, I tell ye!” repeated Uncle 
Tribby, dropping helplessly into a chair. 

Aunt Gratitude’s spoon had dropped, too, 
and its long wooden handle sank slowly down 
into the great bowl of “pumpkin” sauce she 
had been stirring. But she gave it not even a 
look; her eyes, dilated with horror until she could 
almost see over the rims of her spectacles, were 
fixed upon Uncle Tribby’s white face, and he in 
his turn gazed at her, in as stony a despair as if 
he felt the world itself melting away from under 
his feet. 


122 


KING GEORGE’S THIEVES 


123 


She's strayed away!” gasped Aunt Gratitude, 
as if the sound of her own words would help her 
to believe them; “why don't ye go after her ?” 

“Go after her! Go down the throats of them 
cantankerous Britishers, that would go down 
Jonah's whale's in their turn, if they had their 
deserts. I heered there was a craft in the offing, 
just at day-dawn, yesterday, but they said she 
was steering for Merryweather Bay, and I 
thought that was the last of her, or I'd ha' 
brought the heifer into the settin'-room, and 
locked her up in the cluset along with your 
mother's chiny, afore I'd ha' trusted her where 
she was for the night;'' and Uncle' Tribby — 
through much tribulation we enter into the 
kingdom, was his full name — groaned bitterly 
into the folds of his blue pocket-handkerchief. 

“ What, them miserable block-Amdir? 9 sailors 
Aunt Gratitude never could remember that 
blockade and blockhead were not spelled exactly 
alike. “I should think if they're going to keep 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


lU 

everything decent out of the country, that was 
enough, without coming ashore themselves with 
their thievish tricks!” 

“Tricks! Breaking the eight commandment 
at every barn-door, as if ’twas nothin’ more’n a 
pipe-stem between their fingers ! And that there 
heifer ’t we’d only jest fairly got raised, and her 
mother dead and gone afore her, so there’s no 
prospect in natur’ of our ever bringing another 
forrard!” 

Dead and gone old WTiite face truly was,andnot 
much out of the course of natme it would seem, 
as her mother had set Uncle Tribby and Aunt 
Gratitude up at housekeeping nearly forty years 
before, and she in turn had presented them with 
the lamented heifer about eleven years previous 
to this doleful day. 

But time had begun to seem short to Uncle 
Tribby, so many things were happening as he 
went along, and to-night, to add to all the rest, 
the mail -stage was to bring the five orphan 


KING GEORGE’S THIEVES 


125 


children of his daughter, Experience, to make 
their home at the old place. 

“Fetch ’em home.^^” he had said; “of course, 
and if we haint got the widow’s cruise to feed ’em 
from, they needn’t starve, so long as there’s the 
heifer and the chickens to look to. ” 

But now! Uncle Tribby sat with the toe of 
his boot actually inside the sacred purity of his 
fallen milk-pail, gazing pitifully into Aunt 
Gratitude’s face, in search of some light on the 
future; but she could see no more than he could 
and so, with a way she had, she sprang vigorous- 
ly into the present again. 

“ Well ! I must finish the pies with yesterday’s 
milk. ‘Twont be so good, but it’s the last we 
shall ever have, and there’s a whole pound of that 
beet sugar in them already!’* 

Uncle Tribby groaned again. That “beet 
sugar,” the product of half his garden patch, 
was not going to last the five new mouths long, 
and the “blockhead” drew closer every day. 


126 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


“Well, I’ll look after the pullets,” he said, at 
last, with a desperate effort to follow Aunt Grati- 
tude’s example. Something shuffled as he moved 
off, and he looked down to find one foot fairly 
inside the milk-pail, but the nervous look he cast 
towards Aunt Gratty showed she hadn’t heard 
it; she was slowly bringing the lost spoon handle 
to light, with the half -whispered, “Such a thing 
never happened to her before in all her house- 
keeping!” 

But a moment later she turned her head, and 
there stood Uncle Tribby again, his face ten 
times whiter than before, and the blue handker- 
chief crumpled wildly from one hand to the 
other. 

“ The fowl-critters is gone too ! Every hen and 
chicken of ’em! There ain’t so much as a tail 
feather left of the whole lot!” 

The jolly tars of His Majesty’s blockading 
ship Scudder had taken good care there shouldn’t 
be, and the white hen, and the speckled rooster. 


KING GEORGE’S THIEVES 


127 


and the black top-knot, with all her brood of 
pullets, had been “spliced” to the ragged little 
rope Uncle Tribby had used to tie the heifer, and 
thrown in a fluttering, gasping row across her 
back. 

“Hope they won’t crow Yankee Doodle too 
loud and wake the old folks,” said the head of 
the party, as they made their triumphant proces- 
sion down the yard; but Uncle Tribby had only 
stirred uneasily in his sleep, and the gate closed 
quietly behind his treasures. 

But what did they see before them, all in white, 
just at the turn of the road ? Not a company of 
ghosts, for the white was rather a pinky white, 
and scrambling backward and sideways, instead 
of waving majestically on. Only Goffer Gallo- 
way’s whole litter of pigs, just old enough to 
roast, and more sailors stumbling clumsily over 
ditches and fences in pursuit. 

And there was another line trailing through 
the pasture just beyond — Mother Humbledon’s 


128 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


turkeys, with now an indignant gobble, and then 
a snap at some sleepy grasshopper, while here, 
there, and everywhere, the white moonlight, 
falling across the fields and by-ways, was dotted 
with dark figures moving hurriedly along, on two 
legs or four, as nature had happened to supply 
them. 

“Ship ahoy!” shouted the leader of the heifer. 
“What ship is that.^” 

“Lend a hand here, and you’ll find out!” 
answered brother Jack. “I’d rather fight all 
the Yankees that ever went to church in a meet- 
ing-house, than make a ship’s length more with 
these pesky pigs!’^ 

“Every craft must handle her own guns; and 
heave ahead, my hearty, or yon Yankees will be 
waking up before we have time to eat their 
Thanksgiving dinner for them!” was the helpful 
answer; and heifer, pigs, turkeys, sailors, chick- 
ens, and all the rest, scrambled helter-skelter, 
at such speed as each could make, towards the 


KING GEORGE’S THIEVES 


129 


ScuddeVy which lay to, just off shore, her half- 
reefed canvas fluttering as sleepily in the breeze 
as if no thought of mischief could be abroad. 

Squire Asnapper Withrington, the tithing-man 
of the village, was the terror of all the small boys 
on Sundays, as he stood in the aisle of the 
meeting-house with his long pole in his hand, 
ready to descend with a rap on the head of any 
offender who forgot his behavior for an instant; 
but on week-days he was everybody’s kindest 
and most unfailing friend, and it was quite as a 
matter of course that the sufferers by the raid 
from the Scudder drew round his “keeping- 
room” fire the next night, almost imagining they 
saw their lost pigs and chickens trooping back 
to them, as they compared their woes over the 
freshly-heaped and crackling logs. 

And freshly-heaped meant something in those 
days! The backlogs and forestick had been 
dragged in chains to the door that morning, by 
a stout yoke of oxen, and after they had been 


130 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


rolled to their places on the hearth, filled in, and 
heaped between, and laid over with smaller logs, 
almost enough to build a house for a reasonable 
squatter in these times. And now the great 
glowing bed, where the remains of all this lay, 
was stirred and poked, and a quarter of a cord 
more thrown upon it, to crackle, and snap, and 
lick itself with the fiery tongues that crept out of 
it, as if it were the merriest thing in the world 
to be burned alive. 

And the fireplace was wide enough and deep 
enough, after all that, for an armchair to stand 
at each end, just at a delicious distance from the 
ends of the logs, and in these chairs Goffer 
Galloway and Uncle Tribby were ensconced to- 
night out of respect to their age and their woes 
alike. 

“How many o’ them critters of yours was 
there asked Uncle Tribby, across the crack- 
ling logs. ^ 

“Five!” piped Goffer Galloway, in a pitiful 


KING GEORGE’S THIEVES 


131 



“Not a word broke the serene dignity of the Rev. John.” — Page 141 











KING GEORGE’S THIEVES 


138 


tone; “every mother’s son of ’em. And I’d 
engaged one to Goodman Hathaway for a carding 
of wool, that was to have made a winter kirtle 
for my wife, and another to Ben Lufkin, as sails 
his father’s fishing craft, and was to let us have 
a fish now and then the next six month, for the 
value of it. But they’re gone, the hull lot, and 
the petticoat and the fish dinners went along with 
’em!” 

Goodman Hathaway, whose gray goose with 
all her goslings were also missing, gave an 
answering groan. 

“ I would the folk of Providence had felt called 
upon to mind their own business,” he said, 
“afore they took upon themselves to board His 
Majesty’s frigate and send it down Narragansett 
Bay in a blaze that set King George and all his 
court afire against us at the same time! All the 
tea thrown overboard in Boston served not to 
draw the blockade upon us like that matter.” 

“And what then.^” exclaimed Goffer Gallo- 


134 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


way, springing from his chair and almost dancing 
a three-legged jig on his rheumatic feet and his 
tall cane together. “Let them draw a blockade 
five hundred ship-of-the-line deep, and send 
their thievish sailors ashore as thick as the plague 
of fiies in Egypt, and I could wish myself the 
man that touched the match to the frigate ! Tea 
overboard! And it had turned every drop of 
water in the harbor to gall, and they had forced us 
to drink it, I could swallow my portion and call 
it sweet rather than see our rights taken from us 
and never speak like a man!” 

A murmur of applause ran round the room, 
but after all, patriotism wasn’t a thing to be 
eaten or drunk, and their thoughts would come 
round again to butter and eggs. One after 
another began to recount his losses, and at last 
all eyes turned appealingly to the squire, as if 
even in this extremity he might suggest some- 
thing. 

“Truly,” he said, rising rather more quietly 


KING GEORGE’S THIEVES 


135 


than Goffer Galloway had done, “the fleet and 
the liberty given its sailors hath become a sore 
and grievous evil. We know how to take cheer- 
fully such privations as cometh lawfully of the 
blockade, since that is to be expected by people 
who have offended their sovereign ; but the spoil- 
ing of our goods by petty theft is irregular, and a 
sharp thing for free citizens to bear. And as 
frequent repetition beginneth to make it too 
grievous, my advice is, that a message be sent 
aboard some vessel of influence, to the effect 
that His Majesty’s sailors are permitted to inflict 
wanton injury and great suffering upon his sub- 
jects, and remonstrances respectfully be made 
against the same. ’’ 

Uncle Tribby’s hair almost stood on end, and 
Goffer Galloway’s chin slipped off the top of his 
cane, while a buzz of amazement and almost 
terror went round the room. 

Board one of the blockading vessels to com- 
plain of their wrongs and demand their rights! 


186 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


A fine thing it might be to complain that 
the British lion’s teeth were too sharp, but who 
was going to Dut his head inside its mouth to 
say so? 

Squire Withrington observed the look. 

‘‘I am verily in earnest,” he said; “and as I 
see your hearts are faint, would suggest that a 
most meet and proper person to undertake the 
embassy be our parson, considering he hath left 
the kirk of Scotland but few years to reside 
among this rebellious people, and his name still 
standeth high among its dignitaries.” 

The parson! That put quite a different face 
on the question; and a murmur of approval said 
so quite distinctly, and a committee of three was 
chosen immediately to go and ask if he would 
dare the audacious deed. 

Rev. John Murray, the eloquent and honored 
parson of the town, lived in a “square house” 
that stood, imposing with white paint, at the 
summit of a hill hard by, and thither the two 


KING GEORGE’S THIEVES 


137 


younger members of the trio scrambled with a 
haste that left poor Uncle Tribby panting for 
breath behind, and only able to overtake them 
just as the parson, simple in dress, but grand in 
towering proportions and kindly dignity, ap- 
peared at the door. 

“Go?’’ he said, when he had listened to the 
appeals which Ben Lufkin, the foreman, man- 
aged to stammer out, “Go? Most certainly 
I will, at the coming of the very next vessel of 
the squadron, and shall consider it most meet 
and proper to make remonstrances against so 
unlawful grievance. But although it is true 
that my house doth overlook the harbor, I may 
be so engrossed in study as not to observe the 
coming of the enemy. Therefore let me know 
at any early hour, whenever sail be discovered 
to approach us, and I am ready.” 

The parson was not left long to dream over 
his blue books undisturbed. Only two days had 
passed when a loud knock announced Ben Luf- 


138 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


kin, with the news that a large ship was bearing 
directly towards the town. 

“Bring your boat to the landing with a full 
crew to man her, and I will be there within an 
hour’s time!” was the answer; and Ben sped 
away, trembling at now venturing to play second 
fiddle in this affair. 

“I tell you, boys, the parson’s got the pluck, ” 
he said, as he ranged his crew at their row-locks, 
“He drew himself up like a magistrate, hearing 
there were boys at his apple trees, or as if he had 
only a sermon to preach to greater sinners than 
sat before him on other days!” 

“ Mayhap his heart will fail him when we get 
fairly under the guns of the vessel,” said Goffer 
Galloway’s Sam. 

“Never fear the parson! Why, only look at 
me, risking my boat and my chance of bread and 
water in the ship’s hold for taking him out to her, 
and me as brave as a lion!” said Ben, looking 
decidedly pale, and holding his oar with a nervous 


KING GEORGE’S THIEVES 


139 


hand. In another moment he had dropped it, 
and fallen pell mell over to Jem’s seat behind. 

“Good land deliver us! There comes the 
Angel Gabriel down the hill The crew looked 
up, and, to be sure, a most strange and wondrous 
figure was approaching. Tall, erect, with long, 
white locks curling over the shoulders, drapery 
falling in majestic folds to the feet, and floating 
away like wings from each shoulder, something 
white at the throat, something blue on the head, 
and the whole moving slowly but unerringly 
towards the boat. 

Nearer and steadily nearer, and before the 
terrified crew could do more than get Ben right 
side up again, the Rev. John had taken his seat 
among them, wig, gown, bands, scarf, bonnet 
and all; the full paraphernalia of the Scottish 
church, old and familiar dignities to him, but 
never before exhibited to the astonished eyes 
of his Yankee crew. 

“ Push off, boys ! ” whispered Ben. His orders 


140 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 



were obeyed, and with 
trembling but rapid stroke 
they made for the ap- 
proaching vessel; but not 
with the astonishment all 
to themselves. The mate 
watched the nearing boat 
with wonder deepening in- 
to awe, as each moment 
showed him more distinct- 
ly the imposing figure 
seated in silent statehness 
in her stern; and before 
she was fairly alongside he 
had descended the gang- 
“ What ship is this ? ’* Way, hat in hand, to re- 

ceive whatever communication should be made. 

The drapery of the Rev. John spread superbly 
in the breeze as he rose majestically to inquire,^ — 
“What ship is this.^’’ 

“The fiagship of His Majesty’s blockading 
fleet,” was the answer. 


KING GEORGE’S THIEVES 141 

’’ said the Rev. John, “say to Admiral 
Toombs, then, that I wish to speak with him; 
and he calmly reseated himself, while the mate 
appeared hastily in the cabin with the news that 
there was a boat alongside containing a “person- 
age” who desired to speak with the Admiral. 
“And who is it?’* asked the Admiral. 

“I’m sure I can’t imagine, sir, unless it may 
be the Archbishop of Cmnterbury.’* 

“Let him come below,” said the Admiral; 
and the Rev. John, wig, gown, and bands, 
righteous indignation and benign courtesy, all 
walked together in the cabin, the Admiral rising 
hastily and placing a chair for his guest. 

Plash plash, went the oars of Ben Lufkin’s 
boat, as he thanked his stars at taking himself 
and the parson home again in safety; and snap, 
crack, went the squire’s fire as the sufferers from 
petty theft gathered round it again that night, 
but not a word broke the serene dignity of the 
Rev. John until, the company being complete, 
he rose to address them. 


142 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


“ Good friends and neighbors, I rejoice that in 
undertaking your embassy I should have fallen, 
upon one so strong as an oflScer in authority, 
and at the same time so courteous and high- 
minded as a gentleman. The Admiral not only 
listened with all grave and suitable indignation 
to the story of your wrongs, but gave most 
positive orders in my presence against infliction 
of farther injury, under threat of most condign 
punishment. Nor is this all;’’ and the Rev. 
John poured slowly out upon the table a purse 
of glittering gold pieces. 

“The Admiral regretted so deeply the wrong 
that has been done as to seem ill satisfied with 
promise for the future ; and from his ow n private 
purse he sendeth this sum to be divided, so far 
as it may go, among those who could most ill 
afford their losses. Goffer Galloway, tell me 
the value of the young swine taken from your 
stable; and. Tribulation Perritt, let me know 
what it will cost to replace the animal you lost; 
and we will then proceed to other claimants. 


KING GEORGE’S THIEVES 


143 


A shout went up from every mouth. Good- 
wife Galloway had her winter kirtle. Uncle 
Tribby’s new family lived sumptuously on butter 
and eggs once more, and from all the region 
round about no further complaints were heard 
to arise till the last of the “blockheading” fleet 
had disappeared beyond the line where sky and 
water meet. 




HEROES 

OF LAKE CHAMPLAIN 

To know that Ticonderoga was in the 
hands of the British galled American 
pride. Yet there seemed no help for 
it. Biirgoyne had captured the fort on the fifth 
of July, and when he moved on toward Albany 
he left a substantial garrison behind. 

During the month that followed, no one dared 
say that the invasion would miss its purpose. 
Probably in those dark days some Americans were 
willing to forget the dramatic moment when 
Ethan Allen demanded the fort’s surrender 
‘‘in the name of the Great Jehovah and the 
Continental Congress” — so little hope they had 
of lowering that red-cross flag. 

But in August, after General Stark and his 

144 


HEROES OF LAKE CHAMPLAIN 


145 


country boys won the battle of Bennington, 
hope revived. Washington was not alone in per- 
ceiving the weakness of Burgoyne’s policy. 
The British commander was drawing near 
the heart of a hostile country. On all sides 
the patriots were flying to arms, and the end of 
the harvest would see almost every able-bodied 
man a soldier. 

Yet Burgoyne was continually reducing his 
force — garrisoning outposts, sending off detach- 
ments to levy supplies or harass the settlements; 
and long before his main body reached Saratoga 
the patriots began to believe that they might 
cut off the outposts and defeat the detach- 
ments, and finally vanquish the great general 
himself. 

It seemed essential to this plan that they should 
regain control of I^ake Champlain and its forti- 
fications. In September, Colonel Brown, with 
five hundred men, undertook the exploit. He 
surprised all the British posts between the 


146 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


northern end of Lake George and the main body 
of the fortress at Ticonderoga. 

Ticonderoga itself succesfully resisted — so 
successfully that there was danger of a sortie 
upon his weary and battle-wasted soldiers; and 
his only reinforcements were on the other side of 
the lake, which the British, roused to activity by 
his presence, patrolled night and day. 

It was under these circumstances that Colonel 
Brown called his men together on a certain Sep- 
tember afternoon. Discipline was not so strict 
in the camp of the Continentals as in a modern 
army, and perhaps some hint of his purpose had 
already gone abroad. One Ephraim Webster 
was not sobered by the knowledge — if he pos- 
sessed it; but others saw farther than their light- 
hearted comrade, and heard their commander’s 
words as befitted serious men. 

“I must communicate with General Lincoln,” 
the colonel said, when he had pictured the sit- 
uation as clearly as he could. You know what 



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HEROES OF LAKE CHAMPLAIN 


149 


that means. Two men must swim the lake. 
Two, because they may be able to help each 
other, and, because one may be captured, and 
the despatches must not fail. I shall not order 
any man to do this. Who will volunteer to risk 
his life for his country 

“Til go for one!” 

“Ephraim Webster. Good!” The Colonel 
looked with critical approval at the stout young 
fellow who stepped from the ranks so gaily. 
“Thank you, Webster,” he added; “it’s no 
frolic, I promise you. But you were at Bunker 
Hill; you know a soldier’s duty!” 

“Who’ll go with Webster he asked, a mo- 
ment later. “I realize the peril, men. You 
may drown. The British may shoot you, hang 
you, perhaps. But there’s a chance of getting 
through and saving the campaign. Who volun- 
teers 

A man of Webster’s age, but less strongly 
built than he, came quietly forward. 


150 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


“Richard Wallace,” the commander hailed 
him. “I knew Vermont would not stay behind 
New Hampshire. Your townsfolk in Thetford 
will be proud, Wallace, when they hear of their 
neighbor’s deed!” 

“Come to my tent an hour before sunset,” 
Colonel Brown ordered, as he dismissed the 
force. “Between this time and that, the day is 
yours.” 

It was doubtless a kindly impulse that prompt- 
ed their comrades to leave Webster and Wallace 
to themselves. The two volunteers strolled away 
aimlessly toward the woods. Webster’s bold, 
black eyes, roving on every side, found material 
for jest and laughter in all the appointments of 
the camp. Wallace’s mood was almost sombre. 

“I ought to have left it to some one else, 
Ephraim,” he said mournfully, at length. “I 
don’t know as I can do it.” 

“Nonsense, Dick! Haven’t I seen you swim 
farther, just for fun.^” 


HEROES OF LAKE CHAMPLAIN 


151 


‘‘P’r’aps; but not in September — ^with the 
night chill on the water.” 

“You’ll be warm enough after we get started. 
I’ve known you to feel just the same way before 
we went into a fight; but you didn’t run, did you ? 
I ain’t afraid of you, Dick!” 

Nor was the officer who, at Colonel Brown’s 
order, went with them, later on, to advise in the 
choice of the route. While the daylight lasted, 
the three climbed a hill that commanded the 
lake. Upon Champlain, sparkling and dimpling 
in the slant sunlight, seemed activity. 

The British fleet was on the alert. Evidently 
the shores on either side were constantly watched. 
At that moment, signals were passing between 
the flagship and Ticonderoga. Wffiile the pa- 
triots looked on they saw the patrol-boat thread- 
ing amongst the larger craft, and remembered 
that she would be even more vigilant when 
darkness fell. 

“The distance across is about a mile at this 


152 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


point/’ the officer observed. “By the course 
you must take, it will be nearer two. Strike 
northeast and round that upper gunboat. Then 
— if I were you — ^I’d head for that point of woods. 
You’ll probably find Lincoln’s camp south of the 
fort. There’ll be British, I guess, between you 
and it. Better start right for it, without waiting 
for daylight, if — if — ” 

“That’s so!” laughed Webster. “The red- 
coats can see too far when the sun shines. Eh. 
Dick.?” 

Wallace made no reply. The sense of respon- 
sibility that weighs upon a thoughtful man when 
he attempts an enterprise which concerns the 
fortunes of others disposed him to silence. 

But the officer knew that one who dares a dan- 
ger he has clearly foreseen is not likely to be over- 
whelmed by it. When they parted at the shore, 
a few hours after, he saw that there was no need 
to exhort either to be brave and bold. 

The night came cloudily and with a late moon. 


HEROES OF LAKE CHAMPLAIN 


153 


The gentle breeze that had rippled all day 
through the tree-tops died with the sun. The 
warmth of the day seemed to vanish as quickly. 
There was an autumnal sharpness in the quiet 
air that pierced to the bone. 

“I dread cramp more’n I do the British!’* 
Webster said, through chattering teeth, as he 
rolled up his clothing. 

Now that the time for action had come, 
Wallace had no more doubts. ‘‘We’ll get warm 
in the water,” he answered, cheerfully. 

Their friendly officer helped them to fasten 
their bundles of clothing by cords that crossed 
from the forehead to the back of the neck. Then 
he shook hands with them, silently and solemnly 
there in the darkness, and the volunteers dropped 
into the black water in the shadow of the over- 
hanging boughs, and began the long struggle 
across the lake. 

They swam with long, steady strokes, husband- 
ing their strength. Though they kept together. 


154 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


they exchanged few words. The night was very 
still. Occasional sounds from the vessels came 
so sharply to the swimmers that the fear of be- 
traying their own presence set a seal on their 
lips. 

And Wallace was busy with his thoughts. 
Born in Nova Scotia in 1753, he had come, as a 
very young man, to Vermont, and when the 
colonies rebelled against the king had cast his lot 
with his new friends. Now under the starless 
sky his mind went back to the old home in the 
east; but the life with the loyalists seemed, 
somehow, strangely remote, when one was risk- 
ing life in the patriot’s cause! 

Impelled by his reflections, which were merrier 
perhaps, Webster had quickened his pace and 
left Wallace behind. The British vessels were 
around him. They showed few lights, save 
from the oflicers’ quarters; and it was easy to 
avoid these beams that made infrequent path- 
ways through the gloom. 


HEROES OF LAKE CHAMPLAIN 


155 


Clear of the ships, 

Webster delayed for his 
friend. It was unsafe 
to call to him. He would 
not have waited so calm- 
ly had he known that at 
that moment Wallace 
was facing death. Yet 
so it was. 

The danger threatened 
from an unlooked-for 
source. A sudden in- 
cautious movement had 
thrown the cord from 
Wallace’s forehead. The 
weight of the bundle of 
clothing drew and tight- 
ened it around his throat. 

‘‘As though the British had me at the yard- 
arm!” he muttered. 

It seemed a simple thing to release himself. 



“They swam with long, steady 
steady strokes.” 


156 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


and he smiled at his own grim joke as, treading 
water, he put his hand to the cord. The first 
effort showed him that this was no laughing 
matter. The knot was out of reach. The cord 
seemed momentarily to contract and slip from 
him as he strove to replace it. 

One of the smaller gunboats was just ahead 
of him. A bell sounded. He heard the watch 
call the hour and cry, “All’s well! ” All well! And 
he was strangling! 

A formless shape swept across the darkness 
and his tortured senses were conscious of the 
gentle dip of muffled oars. The patrol-boat 
was on her rounds. Life was sweet. A few 
strokes would take him to the boat. There he 
would find help, aye, a welcome! The British 
would not harm him if he revealed the patriots’ 
plans. Yet when the suggestion was fairly 
before him, his conscience revolted. Better die 
than betray his country! 

There was a ringing in his ears. Sparks of 


HEROES OF LAKE CHAMPLAIN 


157 


flame shot across his field of vision. But in his 
fierce impatience at his own weak thought, he 
made a last desperate clutch at the cord — and 
lifted it. The next moment it was in place, and 
he realized that he was free to go forward. 

He made his way, with effort, to the nearest 
vessel and held himself up by her cable while he 
drew in long breaths of the cool night air. 

His strength returned, and with it came the 
consciouness that this was no safe resting-place. 
He slipped into the water and paddled away. 
Presently a faint whistle guided him to Webster. 

‘‘All right, Dick.J^” Webster asked. 

“All right.” 

It was time to turn southward, and they 
took the new course, though in the impenetrable 
blackness of the night that was half a matter 
of chance. For ten minutes they held it without 
incident. Then there broke out in the fleet an 
uproar that almost persuaded them they were 
discovered. 


158 


GRANDFATHERS TALES 


Shots were fired, and they heard the noise of 
boats getting away. But the lights showed that 
these were moving toward the western shore, 
whence the patriots had come; and the relief of 
that knowledge brought renewal of vigor. 

Weeks after, they learned that a deserter had 
tried to swim ashore and had drowned when 
nearly within reach of safety. And then they 
perceived that if he had left his ship but a little 
earlier the pursuit would have resulted in their 
capture. 

Ignorant as they were of such cause for thank- 
fulness, the moments dragged on. The two 
miles lengthened to almost three. The lake 
became a force to be resisted, as well as an ob- 
stacle to be overcome. 

But at last, for the leader, the long swim 
ended. Just as Wallace touched a bough that 
overhung the water, he heard his comrade’s 
voice, sounding faint and far away. 

“Help, Dick! Tm sinking!” 


HEROES OF LAKE CHAMPLAIN 


159 


An instant served Wallace to jump ashore, 
break off the branch and plunge in again. A 
second, feebler cry led him to Webster; and 
the next moment saw the drowning man and his 
rescuer on dry land. 

Cramp had assailed Webster, and he was help- 
less. Wallace opened their bundles and rubbed 
him until the circulation was restored. When 
he was able to stand, they set off in search of 
their friends. 

The moon had risen while they lingered, and 
though the forest was pathless, and dark enough 
at best, they made fair progress. They had but 
a vague idea of General Lincoln’s whereabouts; 
yet it seemed that following the direction they 
had taken they must sooner or later reach him. 

An hour went by, and the toilsome tramp 
showed no result. All at once, from a clump of 
trees came the harsh challenge, ‘‘WTo goes 
there 

They made no answer. 


160 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


Webster, who led, stooped and gathered a 
handful of earth, his purpose clearly in mind. 
They knew they must be very near the friend or 
enemy who had spoken, and with fast-beating 
hearts they stood still and waited his next 
movement. 

It was no long wait. There was a flash and a 
crackle, a birch-bark torch flared into a blaze, 
and by the light they saw that their challenger 
was a British sentinel. 

Webster threw his handful of earth with steady 
aim. It smote the torch to the ground and 
extinguished it. The sentry discharged his 
piece, but the bullet whistled harmlessly past 
them. 

Before the report had ceased to echo, they were 
far away from the spot, running with that long, 
swinging, and almost noiseless stride that marks 
the trained woodsman. 

There was no pursuit — or, if any, it took 
the wrong course. Unmolested, they skirted 


HEROES OF LAKE CHAMPLAIN 


161 


the fortifications on Mount Independence, and 
still scatheless, they turned toward the lake 
again. 

Thus they went, till the night seemed endless 
and the quest hopeless. They pushed on dog- 
gedly for theirs was not the temper which suc- 
cumbs; but the rough road and their aching 
limbs made every step a torture. They wondered 
at times why they endured, and whether these 
blind wanderings would ever find an end; yet 
neither complained. When they spoke, in whis- 
pers, it was only to cheer each other with hope 
and speedy arrival. 

‘‘Halt! Who goes there brought them to 
a, sudden stand, when they were almost spent. 

“Friends!” Webster answered recklessly. 

“Advance, friends, and give the countersign!” 

It was a moment of desperate anxiety. They 
were discovered. They doubted that strength 
would serve them for another dash through the 
woods. What to do ? It was with hardly any 


162 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


hope, save that of gaining time, that Wallace 
demanded : 

“Whose friends are you?” 

And then the patriots learned that the long 
night of effort had come to a happy end, when 
the invisible sentry said, in the earnest voice of 
an honest man: “America’s! God bless her!” 

Such was the story that my companion told 
me while we traced the lines of Ticonderoga and, 
overlooking the beautiful lake, recalled the 
glorious memories that cluster around the 
place. 

It is in essentials a true story. Wallace and 
Webster are no fictitious heroes, and in all im- 
portant details this recital follows established 
facts. 

In the immediate and practical sense, their 
exploit had no result. Nothing noteworthy came 
of the message to General Lincoln. After Bur- 
goyne surrendered at Saratoga, October 17, the 


HEROES OF LAKE CHAMPLA£N 


163 


British, of their own motion, abandoned the 
lake forts. 

Yet we know that a noble deed is never wasted. 
The man who performs it sets a new star in the 
sky. Because we can look up to it, we are better 
citizens, truer Americans, then we would be if 
Wallace and Webster had not ventured their 
lives for their country a hundred years ago. 




NATHAN HALE 
America’s boy-soldier martyr 
In 1775 a little boy was born at Coventry, 
Conn., and in the pretty home of Dr. Hale and 
his wife every one insisted that such a beautiful 
boy had never been seen anywhere before. The 
good doctor named his tiny son Nathan, and as 
the child grew older he became noted all through 
the colony for the wonderful beauty of his face 
and for the gentleness and sweetness of his 
nature. Little Nathan was a remarkably clever 
boy, too, with a high sense of honor and a splen- 
did courage that often made the old father rest 
his hand on the bright head and dream wonder- 
ful dreams of what he would become by and by. 
All these bright dreams seemed likely to be 
realized, too; for the beautiful child grew into a 

164 


NATHAN HALE 


165 


brilliant, handsome youth, who made a marvel- 
ous record at school and was able to enter Yale 
when he was in his sixteenth year. In the col- 
lege it was the same old story of his childhood 
repeated. The boy’s handsome face and bril- 
liant mind, but above all else his noble, generous 
nature, charmed every one who came about him, 
and he was the best beloved pupil in the college, 
not only by his fellow-students but by the faculty 
as well. Nathan graduated with the highest 
honors when he was only eighteen, and then 
indeed did the parents at Coventry feel that all 
their plans for the boy’s future were coming 
true. He was so noble and gifted, so pure and 
true that the father and mother hoped he would 
consecrate his life to the God who had so richly 
endowed him, and enter the ministry. And as 
they sat in their home planning for their loved 
one, nothing told them how soon all that glorious 
promise, all that brilliant young life was to be 
cut off by the hangman’s rope. 


166 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


The old doctor and his wife were still dream- 
ing their dreams when the War of Independence 
broke out, and among the very first to shoulder 
his gun was their son, Nathan. He was an 
impetuous patriot, and his speeches aroused 
the wildest enthusiasm among the young men 
of his neighborhood. “We must march imme- 
diately and never lay down our arms until we 
have won our independence!” he cried one day 
at a great political meeting; and when he sat 
down nearly every young man there came for- 
ward and volunteered for immediate service. 

At this time he was but a few months from 
college, where he had endeared himself to all. 
His taste for study, and for the best study, was 
distinctly formed — and even in the scanty record 
we have of his short life, it is clear that he was 
using books, and the best books, thoroughly 
carefully, and in every way well. Of that class 
in Yale College, many men gave themselves 
fully and freely to the country’s service. The 


NATHAN HALE 


167 


young men of Yale and of Harvard flung them- 
selves into the army, as they did in these later 
years of another war for liberty. It is a note- 
worthy fact, indeed, that, like all great struggles 
for popular rights, it was a war fought by young 
men. Lafayette was only a boy when he joined 
the staff of Washington, and he found for com- 
rades boys near his own age. Hamilton, 
indeed, was younger than he. Washington 
himself, whom they so venerated as a father, 
was in his forty-fourth year when the war began. 
Ward, who was superannuated as an old man 
unfit for command, was forty-eight when he was 
superseded. Knox was but twenty-five when 
the war began, and many of his companions 
were not thirty. The young republic needed 
young blood, and she found it. She was willing 
to avail herself of the tried wisdom of a Trum- 
bull and a Franklin. She was not afraid to 
trust the young enthusiasm of a Hamilton and a 
Hale. 


168 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


As yet Nathan was in the eye of the law a 
minor, and was not, therefore, technically a 
“freeman’’ and entitled to take part in public 
affairs. But he was enrolled in the militia, and 
he was profoundly interested in the military 
discipline which the time required. It was his 
prominence in the community, as a favorite 
with the young, which permitted one not yet 
of age to speak at the meeting called after the 
battle of Lexington. He enrolled himself as a 
volunteer, wrote to Coventry for his father’s 
permission to serve in one of the companies 
of the new establishment, and having, of course, 
received that permission from the sturdy patriot, 
enlisted in Webb’s regiment, the Seventh 
Connecticut, and asked the proprietors of the 
school where he was teaching to excuse him from 
future duty. In this regiment Nathan was first 
lieutenant; and, after the 1st of September, 
captain. The company consisted of seventy- 
one men, and after some service in the neighbor- 


NATHAN HALE 


169 



hood of New London, 
was marched, by Wash- 
ington’s orders, to the 
camp at Cambridge. 

We have his brief 
diary of the march of 
the detachment. It 
passed through Reho- 
both and Dedham to 
Roxbury, where young 
Hale’s company en- 
camped on the evening 
of September 26. They 
were afterward trans- 
ferred to Cambridge 
and Charlestown, and 
encamped at the foot 
of Winter Hill. It was 
here that General Put- 
nam after grimly retiring from Bunker Hill on the 
17th of June, said that he would be willing to 


We must never lay down our anna 
imtil we have won our 
independence.” 


170 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


sell another hill to King George at the same price. 
There was no lack of hills in America. Winter 
Hill was the next hill; and here, for most of the 
winter, Webb’s regiment was posted. 

Hale’s account of the way in which he and his 
men spent that autumn and winter is in itself 
an interesting contribution to one of the most 
interesting periods of our history. Of that whole 
winter, the greatest success was not a feat of 
arms. It was the success, not to be paralleled, 
hard to understand or believe, by which one army 
was disbanded and another enlisted, in the face 
of an enemy of equal, if not superior, numbers. 
The besieging army was virtually an army of 
minute men while the year 1775 lasted. After 
New Year’s day, in the year 1776, it was an army 
of men enlisted by the Continent, and enlisted, 
in most instances, for the war. 

Hale gave his own pay to his men to induce 
them to enlist, then borrowed from Captain 
Leavenworth enough money to go home with 


NATHAN HALE 


171 


giving him an order for his pay to January, and 
returned to his father’s house. He went home 
to enlist a new company there. One month of 
that frank, friendly, loyal zeal of his was enough, 
and, on the 27th of January, 1776, the boy, not 
yet of age, arrived with recruits who enlisted for 
the war. 

Nathan Hale made a splendid soldier, boy 
though he was in years, as his promotion to cap- 
taincy for gallant conduct on the field before 
many months proved. Not long after this, 
many of his comrades became dissatisfied with 
the poor rations and hard fighting, and some of 
them said they were going back home. This 
roused all the fire and patriotism of the “boy 
captain,” as he was called, and he made them 
a speech which caused the poor-spirited fellows 
to cringe, so full was it of love for his country 
and bitter contempt for those who would desert 
her in her dire need. He wound up by offering 
to give them whatever pay might be coming 


172 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


to him if they would not disgrace themselves 
by returning home. All these things came to the 
ears of the great commander-in-chief; and grad- 
nally, when any hazardous enterprise was to be 
undertaken, requiring perfect faithfulness to 
duty and a courage that quailed at nothing. 
Captain Hale was sent for. Once, when the 
Continental army was starving, news came that 
a British ship filled with provisions was anchored 
out in East River, under the protection of a war 
vessel. “Our men are dying for food out there; 
we must have it,’’ General Washington said to 
his youthful captain, who looked a boy in spite 
of his officer’s uniform. 

“I’ll get it for you, sir,” was the prompt reply; 
and that night, with a few picked men, Nathan 
Hale entered a little whaleboat and rowed out 
to the big ship. His men were well trained, 
and, in spite of the overwhelming numbers on 
the vessel, they boarded her, captured the guard, 
and brought the ship to shore, where the food 
was distributed among the half-starved soldiers. 


NATHAN HALE 


173 


His short life was full of noble deeds, but the 
death he chose to die was the grandest thing 
Nathan Hale ever did. In 1775, when he was 
barely twenty. Captain Hale was called to meet 
Washington at headquarters, in New York City, 
and the lad went gladly, little dreaming what 
was to be asked of him. The affairs of the 
Americans were in a pretty bad way at that time, 
and it was absolutely necessary that a trust- 
worthy person go into the enemy’s camp, on 
Long Island, and find out all about them, what 
their numbers were, and how strong were the 
fortifications they had erected. Washington 
did not order the boy to go; he merely laid the 
desperate need of information before him, and 
then, almost ere the words left his lips, the young 
officer was on his feet, crying, “I’ll go, sir.” 

The generous offer was accepted, and then a 
great clamor arose among the lad’s comrades, 
all of whom loved him devotedly. If a spy is 
discovered during war times he is either shot or 


174 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


hanged at once, and from all sides came vigorous 
protests against Nathan’s deliberately taking 
such a desperate risk. “I know the danger full 
well, and what the result will be if I am cap- 
tured,” he said firmly just before he left the 
camp, “but I am perfectly willing to take the 
risk for my country. ” 

He disguisedhimself as a Dutch schoolmaster, 
entered the British camp, and obtained the 
information desired by his commander. He 
also secured drawings of the fortifications, which 
he concealed in his shoe. Everything seemed 
to be going well, and he was preparing to return 
to his own camp when he was discovered. A 
cousin of his, who was a bitter enemy of the 
Americans, recognized him, and at once betrayed 
him to the British, the drawings hidden in his 
shoe making all defense impossible. He was 
hanged the next morning at sunrise, and met 
his terrible fate as bravely as he had faced the 
enemy’s guns on the battlefield. His execution- 


NATHAN HALE 


175 



I only regret that I have but one life to give to my country.’”— Page 177 




NATHAN HALE 


177 


ers did not even allow him to see a minister before 
he went to the scaffold. The brutal Cunning- 
ham also tore up in his presence the last letter 
the condemned boy had written to his parents, 
saying in explanation of the cruel act, ‘‘It was 
necessary, so the rebels might not know they 
had a man who could die so bravely. ” 

Hale’s last words, when told by Cunningham, 
in derision, to speak to the people, were: “I 
only regret that I have but one life to give to my 
country.” 

Thus ended a martyr’s life. Hardly three 
months had passed since he was twenty-one 
years old. 



CAPTAIN BEMAN’S EXPLOIT 

The visitor to the Brooklyn Navy-Yard should 
not consider his errand accomplished until he 
takes his stand next the river, and looking out 
over the Wallabout, recalls something of the 
sad history connected with this little bay. 

Here, in October, 1776, was moored a British 
prison-ship, the Whitby ^ crowded with American 
patriot prisoners, termed rebels by the English. 
Six months later two other floating jails joined 
the Whitby, and within a year both were burned, 
one in October, 1777, the other in February, 
1778. 

Although no trustworthy record of the facts 
in the case was kept, hundreds of feeble and 
dying men are believed to have perished in these 

178 



CAPTAIN BEMAN’S EXPLOIT 


179 


fires. Certain it is that the one in February 
occurred in the night when the weather was 
intensely cold, so that, if efforts were made to 
save the prisoners, no more than partial success 
was possible. 

In April, 1778, the Falmouth^ the Hope and 
the “infamously famous old Jersey'^ were an- 
chored in the Wallabout and filled with captives 
from the American armies. The severity of 
their confinement was such that more than 
eleven thousand are believed to have died of 
cold, starvation and malignant diseases. 

The adjacent hillsides, now graded down 
and included in the city of Brooklyn, became 
a vast cemetery where these brave patriots were 
hastily piled into shallow graves and slightly 
covered with earth. In 1808 a tomb was built 
to their memory, and a great quantity of their 
bleached bones were collected and interred 
within it, with solemn ceremonies, in the presence 
of vast throngs of people. Over the main door 
to this structure was inscribed : 


180 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


“Portal to the Tomb of Patriot Prisoners 
who died in prison-ships during the Revolu- 
tion.” 

It is not surprising that among such a host 
of liberty-loving prisoners there should have 
been some who made bold attempts at escape. 
Not many were successful, yet by fearful risks 
and hardships a few eluded their keepers 
reached home and friends, and after a short 
rest, again joined the patriot forces in the field. 
Of these escapes, one of the boldest was led by 
a young Connecticut captain, Abel Beman, a 
cousin of Nathan Beman of Vermont, the boy 
who guided Col. Ethan Allen into Fort Ticon- 
deroga when he captured it from the British. 

Although Abel Beman was a very small man, 
he seemed to condense in his little frame the 
well-known strength and endurance of his 
almost gigantic kinsman, which, combined with 
indomitable courage and will, was no doubt 
the reason for his selection as captain in the 


CAPTAIN BEMAN’S EXPLOIT 181 

Colonial army. But the qualities of the man 
were not on the surface, for at twenty-five he 
was as beardless and boyish as a lad of sixteen, 
and among his friends was often called “Boy 
Beman.’’ 

By some misfortune of war he and his com- 
pany were captured and imprisoned on the 
Whitby in the Wallabout. Here he bided his 
time, and for many months watched for an 
opportunity to escape. 

Meanwhile he played before the guards the 
role of a harmless, dull-witted fellow, and his 
large hazel eyes, smooth face, and simple manner 
gained for him many favors sternly refused to 
other prisoners. He was freely allowed in 
every part of the ship, and often assisted the 
guards in various ways and even handled their 
guns and accoutrements with innocent familiarity. 

Thus ingratiating himself into their confidence, 
he readily became conversant with the details 
of his prison and the methods of the oflScers, 


182 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


and shrewdly studied the temper and efficiency 
of each with a view to discovering a way to 
freedom. 

A score of plans suggested themselves, but 
the circumstances surrounding him were des- 
perate and forbidding. Three soldiers with 
loaded muskets stood at each end of the ship, 
and a row of them lined the rail on either side. 
Around the shores of the bay stretched a cordon 
of pickets, while several frigates were moored 
in the river, and bristled with shotted cannon 
ready to bellow away at any moment. But for 
the vast magnitude of these difficulties he would 
have hberated all the prisoners on the Whitby y 
over a thousand in number. Indeed, one mag- 
nificent attempt was made, but failed. 

On a dark night the guards were overcome 
and confined below decks without a shot or an 
outcry ; then the anchors were lifted and the ship 
was allowed to drift, in the hope that she would 
run ashore somewhere and afford an opportunity 


CAPTAIN BEMAN’S EXPLOIT 183 

for the Americans to escape. But the rattling 
of a chain in raising the anchors reached the 
ears of the night officer on one of the frigates, 
and before the Whitby had fairly begun to move a 
yawl filled with marines came alongside, and 
the undertaking was frustrated. 

But so enfeebled by rigid confinement and 
low diet were most of the prisoners that probably 
many of them would have perished even had 
they escaped. They had not endurance to 
march across the country to their friends. Thus 
it was plain that any attempt at a general escape 
would defeat itself. 

Finally, Beman decided to include a few only 
of his hardier comrades, and hoped by quietness 
and swiftness to get off without awaking much 
opposition. To this end he selected the seven 
of his companions best fitted for the attempt, 
and rehearsing his plans to them, obtained their 
hearty support. 

All things having been carefully considered, 


184 GRANDFATHER’S TALES 

Beman awaited a favorable occasion to under- 
take the perilous adventure. 

The chance did not come until one rainy 
and dismal day late in October. Fog rendered 
objects a few rods distant quite invisible. The 
boat from headquarters, delayed by the fog and 
an unusually strong tide, was late in reaching 
the Whitby, and arrived just as the guards were 
changing. The circumstances were favorable 
— a fact for which Abel Beman had been in- 
wardly praying all day. 

When the boat touched the ship the officer 
sprang up the side, bearing written orders in 
his hand. Shouting back to an oarsman to 
follow him with a basket brought from the city 
he hurried to the cabin. 

Just then the day guards were being called 
away and the night guard told off in their places. 
To add to the haste and confusion of the scene, 
the prisoners were purposely restless and noisy, 
surging about the deck as if to keep warm, and 
shouting in the most boisterous manner. 


CAPTAIN BEMAN’S EXPLOIT 


185 



Whispering to one of 
his seven companions, a 
very tall man, to reach 
up and get a pair o^ 
oars from a galley over- 
head, Beman, with a 
boyish, good-natured 
smile and a remark to 
the remaining oarsman, 
sprang over the side 
into the boat. Reeling 
as if about to fall, he 
exclaimed childishly, 

“Here, catch hold of 
my hand!’^ 

The boatman, evident- 
ly him, sprang « Xhe officer sprang up the side.” 

forward, seized his hand and gently drew him 
toward a seat in the stern. But this was a fatal 
mistake for the oarsman, for like a flash the little 
American captain grappled the bulky Britisher, 


186 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


overturned him, and plunged him into the river. 
At the same second the guard posted at the 
gangway came down head first also, gun and 
all hurled by the prisoners on deck into the water. 
Then, gliding down, like so many swift shadows, 
came the seven grim followers of the daring 
dwarf, and all except those who were to wield 
the oars squatted in the bottom of the galley. 
Beman stood in the stern as steersman to direct 
their course. 

With the utmost force and order they pulled 
away with the tide northward into the dense 
fog. Just as they were vanishing from sight 
one of the guards on deck discovered them, 
and with a cry of “Halt, there! Halt!” dis- 
charged his musket at them. The next moment 
several guards fired, but with such uncertainty 
on account of the fog that the fugitives were 
untouched, although shots pierced their clothing. 

Now they were concealed in the mist, and all 
was uproar behind them. Every guard was 


CAPTAIN BEMAN’S EXPLOIT 


187 



Gliding do\^, like so many swift shadows, came the seven grim 
followers of the daring dwarf. ” — Page 186 






♦ 


A 


CAPTAIN BEMAN’S EXPLOIT 189 

bawling, ‘‘Rebels escaped! Rebels escaped!’* 
The officers were rushing about, shouting hoarse 
commands to fire, to let down the Whitby^s 
boats and pursue, and to do any number of 
other absurd things. As soon as information 
reached the nearest frigate her guns began to 
thunder as she swept with grape-shot the sur- 
face of river and shore in the direction in which 
the fugitives had fled. 

But the Americans were too shrewd to con- 
tinue their flight in the track of these deadly 
missiles. They knew well that they would be 
not only fired upon but pursued as soon as the 
British could man their boats. So, when the 
fugitives were fully out of sight in the fog^ 
Beman steered the galley directly across East 
River to its western shore; and as it was night 
by this time, they turned their course in the 
opposite direction from what their pursuers 
would take, and silently skirting Manhattan 
Island southward, rowed completely around 
the little city of New York. 


190 


GRANDFATHER’S TALES 


This was an extremely hazardous thing to do, 
for the course carried them close along the front 
of the Battery and under the very guns of several 
big frigates. Now and then they were hailed 
by sentinels from land or ship, but Beman, 
having prepared himself to answer by question- 
ing guards and officers on the Whitby ^ replied 
in such a way as to avert all suspicion. 

Within an hour or so the galley struck into 
North River, and here the tide was running in 
their favor, for it set northward in a mighty 
current. Before morning they were beyond 
danger, and within a few days had arrived, some 
at Washington’s headquarters, and others at 
their homes. While their pursuers were search- 
ing the stretches of East River and the shores 
of the Sound for them, these Yankee rebels 
were marching triumphantly onward to enlist 
again in the struggle for liberty. 



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